Mayflower (Flor de mayo): A Tale of the Valencian Seashore

He was almost running as he entered a dirty street in one of the most miserable sections of the village, lines of dwarf olives on either hand, the sidewalks filthy with trodden dirt, and lined with two rows of shacks, the front yards fenced in with old boards. The door of Rosario's cottage was closed. He ran into it with a violence that almost snapped the latch, and as it swung open, it banged violently against the wall behind. In the murky light of a single candle, Rosario was sitting on a stool, her head between her hands. Her demeanor of sorrow and despair was quite in harmony with the desolate, ill-furnished interior of that hovel – a table, a couple of chairs, two chromos on the wall for decoration, an old mandolin, and some abandoned fish-nets. The place, as the women of the neighborhood said, had the smell of hunger and wife-beating.

Rosario looked up as the door slammed open, and the Rector's massive figure towered over the threshold, completely filling the door-way. "Oh, it's you!" she said with a bitter smile. She had been waiting for him. She knew he would come. Wouldn't he have a chair? He had been rough with her down on the beach, but she didn't mind. "We all feel that way at first! I couldn't believe it when they first told me about Tonet. I slapped the face of the woman who came to me. And then, an hour later, I went and asked her for God's sake to tell the truth. Well, you were going to kill me a little while ago. And here you are! When people are really in love … they get mad at first. But then they want to know the truth, even if it pulls the heart out of them! We are both fools, Pascualo!"

The Rector had closed the door behind him, and was standing now in front of his sister-in-law, his arms folded, looking at her with a scowl of angry hostility, the instinctive hatred a man feels toward the one who wrecks his dream.

"The truth, now! The truth! Speak out! All you've got to say!" Pascualo hissed the threatening words, to put a stop to that everlasting moralizing of an idiot! Would she never get to the point? Yet, in all his menacing, raging impatience, there was terror in his soul, the wish that minutes might turn, almost, to centuries, to postpone the cruel revelation.

Well, yes, she would tell him everything! But how would he take it? What she had to say would hurt him terribly, and he must not hate her so for it. She had had her time of it too. She had suffered now till she could stand it no longer. She hated Tonet, and she hated that infamous Dolores! For her Pascualo was simply a comrade in misfortune. Dolores had been deceiving him. "Oh, it's not a matter of yesterday or day before. They've been carrying on for years – almost from the time Tonet and I were married. Tonet was a good boy. But when that thing saw some one else have him for a husband, she set her eyes on him, and she was the one who first led him astray."

"Bosh!" roared the Rector, blind with fury and anguish. "I want proofs! I'm tired of your talk. Proofs! Proofs, Rosario! And be quick about it."

Rosario smiled pityingly at sight of such a fool! "Proofs! Proofs! Why don't you ask the whole village for proofs, proofs! They've been laughing at you for a year or more. It has been the talk of the town. You won't get angry at me? You want the whole truth? Well, even the 'cats' and the sailors on the beach, when they want to say that a man's wife is deceiving him, call him a worse lanudo than the Rector."

"Damn your soul!" Pascualo roared, clenching his fist and shaking it in Rosario's face. "Rosario … Look, Rosario, be careful what you say. Because … if you don't make good on every blessed word of it … I'll wring your neck the way I would a chicken's."

"I wish you would! I'm tired of living. What have I to live for? No children! Not a friend in the world! Work like a dog from morning till night, to give him the money I earn so as to escape a beating. And he beats me just the same! Wring my neck! That doesn't scare me! Look, Pascualo, look!"

Rosario rolled up her sleeve, and showed on the sallow skin that covered the bones and tendons of her fore-arm, the black-and-blue marks where a heavy hand had squeezed it as in a vise. "And that's only one. I can show you others almost anywhere on my body! And they come from having complained about his bad behavior with Dolores! This one here I got this morning, when I said he ought not go to the beach with her and help her sell the fish as though he was her husband. And I said it wasn't fair to make a fool of the Rector in public like that! But you want proofs, proofs! Well, why didn't Tonet go out with you on the first trip two days ago? He hurt his hand, didn't he? Yes, but his hand got well the moment the Mayflower was beyond the Breakwater. And the next morning there wasn't a bandage to be seen. And everybody noticed it. And you went to sea, to stay up all night, in the cold and wet, to keep your home going for your wife, your dear Dolores! And Tonet stayed all warm and cosy at home with her, the pair of them laughing to see what a stupid, self-satisfied idiot you were! Tonet didn't sleep in this house after you sailed. And he's not here even to-night. He ran in a few moments ago, got his things and was off, saying he wouldn't be back again. And where is he, Pascualo? Over at your house of course! They are sure the Mayflower will keep you down on the shore all night. And Tonet is preparing to make himself at home in your place!"

"Recristo!"

The Rector raised his eyes to heaven, as he muttered the oath, in protest, it seemed, against the powers above who allow such things to happen to an honest man. But he was a stubborn fellow at bottom. His trustful, inoffensive, disposition made it hard for him to believe things like that were possible. Inwardly convinced, he nevertheless came back with a menacing rejoinder:

"You are lying, Rosario! You know that you are lying!"

But the challenge put Rosario on her mettle! "So I'm lying! Oh say, Pascualo, what's the use of talking with a man like you. You're so blind you can't see the nose on your face. What are you yelling about? What have I done to you? You're as blind as a bat, yes, sir, blind as a bat. A man with a spoonful of brains inside his skull would have seen through the situation from the first. But you … you don't notice anything. You never noticed whether your boy looks like you or like him!"

And that was a nasty thrust! Though the Rector's face was as brown as shoe-leather from years in the sun and the salt-air, it turned a bluish ashen pale. His knees seemed to sag as if he were going to fall, and the shock made his words come out faint, husky and stammering.

"My boy! My Pascualet! Well, whom does he look like? Spit it out, damn you! Pascualet … is my boy, my boy. And he looks like me … like me … he does!"

But the laugh with which Rosario answered was the hollow, sarcastic, mocking laugh of a she-devil! Pascualo did not quite understand. What was there to laugh about in his saying that his boy was his boy? In terror he waited for her explanation. "Why, stupid! If Pascualet is your boy, he ought to look like you, oughtn't he, just as you look the way your father, old Pascualo, looked. Well, he doesn't, that's all! He looks like Tonet – eyes shape, build, and complexion! Poor dunce of a Rector! They call you lanudo! But the wool on your eyes is thicker than they ever guessed! Heavens, man, take a peep at the boy! He's the living picture of Tonet, as Tonet used to be in the days when he was a boy with you, down at the tavern, and was running around like a little devil on the beach!"

The Rector did not need convincing further. He was ready to believe that now. A cataract had been removed from before his eyes, and he saw things clearly, though the world had a strange unfamiliar aspect for him, as it does to a blind man led forth for a first glimpse of it. Gospel truth! Pascualet was Tonet over again! How many times, on looking at the boy, he had had, on his own account, a feeling that he was really looking at some one else – though just whom, he could not quite say!

Pascualo pressed a pair of clenched fists to his chest as though his heart were burning inside him and he were trying to tear it out; then he brought them down with a noisy thud upon his temples. "Recontracordons! God of God of God of Gods!" he groaned in a voice of agony that terrified Rosario. "Holy Christ of the Grao!" He staggered a few steps across the room, like a drunken man, and threw himself flat on the floor with a crash that shook the rickety building. He rolled over, and his legs seemed to bound from the violence of the fall.

When the Rector came to his senses again, he found himself lying on his back, and something warm and tickling was running over his cheeks, like a soft wriggling snake. He wiped his face where it hurt, with his hand, and the hand came back, as he saw in the murky candle light, all covered with blood. His nose felt hot and swollen. He understood what had happened. In going to the floor he had struck hard on his face. His nose had been bleeding in streams. Rosario was just kneeling beside him to wash the blood away with a damp cloth. The girl's look of terror brought him back to all he had been hearing, and he repelled her with a gesture of hatred.

"Don't touch me! I can get up by myself. And much obliged for all you have told me! No, no! Don't bother to excuse yourself! I'm delighted! Favors like that are never forgotten. And lucky I bumped my nose. Otherwise I might have burst a blood vessel. God, how my head aches! But never mind! Cheer up! What a time I'm going to have! I've been too good-natured in my life, I have! But why should a fellow try to do right and put his whole life into working for his family? There's plenty of loafers, and gossips, and rotten women, standing around to bring an honest man to ruin. But now watch me, and you'll see something worth while. This town is going to have something to remember the Rector by, Pascualo el Retor, the most famous lanudo of the Gulf! Ho! Ha!"

Meanwhile, as he muttered on, cursing, bellowing, puffing, threatening, he had been wiping his face with the wet cloth, as though the cool touch of it relieved the biting agony within him. Now he strode toward the door, thrusting his big hands into his sash, in a demeanor of determined resolution. Rosario rushed in front of him, an expression of horror written on her face. A flash of her mad passion for Tonet had come back to her. She was afraid he was to be killed. "Wait, Pascualo! Wait! It may be all a lie! I may have been deceived! You know how people talk! And Tonet is your brother!"

But the Rector smiled in a cold sinister way. "I've heard enough from you. And you're right. I know you're right! And when I'm sure, I'm sure. And you're scared because you know I'm right, too. And you're afraid for your Tonet, aren't you! You love him, don't you! Well, yes, and I love Dolores, in spite of everything! Remember, whatever I do, that that girl has got me here, here, and I shall never get the stab of it out of my heart. But you're going to see, Rosario, and this whole town is going to see, how Pascualo el llanut goes about things like this!"

"No, Pascualo, no," begged Rosario, seizing him by his powerful hands. "Wait … not to-night … to-morrow … some other day!"

"Oh, I know what you are thinking about! You know where Tonet is to-night! But don't worry. You're right! Not to-night! Not to-night! Besides, I've left my knife at home. And I'm not going to kill them with my teeth! But for God's sake, get out of my way, woman. A fellow can't breathe in here!" And he brushed Rosario aside with a rude thrust, and dashed out into the dark.

The Rector's first sensation on finding himself alone was one of relief and pleasure, as though he had just escaped from a furnace. And he breathed deeply and deliciously of the cold breeze that was growing noticeably stronger. Not a star was shining now. The sky was overcast, and Pascualo, in spite of his situation, with the instinct of a sailor, first took account of the weather. "Bad day to-morrow!" he commented. Then the sea and the storm passed from his mind. He began to walk, and he walked and walked, moving his legs mechanically, indifferent to direction, hardly knowing that he was walking, though each footstep seemed to ring in his brain with a grating irritating echo. He was as unconscious, almost, as he had been back there in Tenet's cabin after his fall. He was asleep, but standing up, and his feet going, in a dream, but going rapidly, in spite of the paralysis of all his senses. He did not notice that he was walking round and round over the same streets.

Then a feeling came back to him, and again it was one of pleasure. How nice it was to be walking around in the dark over roads that would seem too ugly to be worth while by daylight! It was the fugitive's joy in the desert, where he is free from human beings and under the protecting wing of solitude. There, in the distance, was a glimmer of light. A drinking place, probably! And he turned, all a-tremble, in the opposite direction, as though a danger lay that way. Oh, if some one should see him! He would die of shame. The most insignificant "cat" would be too much for him! No, silence, darkness, to be alone, was all he wanted!

So he walked the streets of the village and then down on the beach, which also seemed to terrify him. "God, how those fishermen must have been making fun of me!" Probably all the boats there were in the secret and when they creaked it was their way of laughing at the wool they saw on the eyes of the Mayflower's captain! Occasionally he would awaken from the torpor in which he was wandering doggedly from place to place. One time he came to himself just long enough to see that he was boarding his boat. At another, he found himself on his own door-step with his hand about to raise the latch. No, somewhere else, somewhere else. A moment's quiet and calm! There would be time for that, later! In the end, shocks like these gradually roused him from his anguished abstraction.

No, he would never put up with it! Never! People were going to find out what sort of a man the Rector was! But after all, it wasn't necessary to be too hard on Dolores. She was running true to form – a real daughter of tio Paella, drunkard that he had been, patron and agent of the girls in the Fishmarket section, talking around his house as though Dolores were some member of his "flock"! What could she ever have learned from a man like that! To be a bad girl, that's all, and no decency whatever. And that was how, just how, she had turned out! But you couldn't blame her, could you? The real one to blame was he himself, great fool that he had been, ever to think of marrying a woman who had to be just what Dolores was!

Hadn't siñá Tona always said so? Mother saw through her from the start, and had never wanted a girl of tio Paella's in the family. A bad woman, Dolores, granted! But he couldn't talk very loud if he had married her with his eyes open. But Tonet! What could you find to say for him! Disgracing your own brother! Who ever heard of monstrousness like that! Your own brother! No, you cut the heart out of a beast of that kind!

But scarcely had his blood-thirsty schemes of vengeance taken shape in his mind, that old habits of thinking had their say. There was Rosario reminding him that Tonet was his brother! Wasn't it just as monstrous for a brother to kill a brother as to betray him? One such case in the history of the world – Cain, and what sort of a chap had Cain been? Not much, to judge by what don Santiago said of him! And then again, was Tonet really to blame? "No, Pascualo! You're to blame yourself, and nobody else. I see it all clear as day. You robbed Tonet of his sweetheart. That boy and Dolores were lovers before you even thought of speaking to a girl of tio Paella's! Now that was a mean trick, come to think of it! Marry your brother's promised bride! As rotten a thing as ever I did! And so, what else could you expect? There they are together all the time – as had to be, brother-in-law, sister-in-law – and both in the family. Well, could you expect them not to fall in love again?"

He stopped in his tracks for a moment, so obvious, so crushing, did the sense of his own guilt come back to him. He looked around. It was the beach, there, under his feet; and a few steps away was the tavern of his mother. The blackening rotting boat, rising from the reed enclosures around it, called up a flood of memories from the past. There they had played together, he and Tonet, running about over the sands. Tonet was on his shoulder, pulling at his hair in angry petulant disgust at not having his own way. Just inside those walls, the old stateroom, and the warm quilt thrown over the two of them! How tenderly he had cared for his little brother, his comrade in poverty, who had rested his little brown head sometimes on his very cheek! Yes, Rosario had been right. His brother! More than that, his child! For it was he, really, more than siñá Tona, who had been a loving parent to the boy, spoiling him, slaving for him! "And now, I'm going to kill him! God, what beast would commit a crime like that?" No, he would forgive Tonet. Why be a Christian otherwise? Why, otherwise, believe in all the things don Santiago talked about?

The absolute solitude of the seashore, the darkness as black as the night before Creation, the complete aloofness from every human being, brought a touch of sweetness back into that travailing spirit, with the impulse toward forgiveness. Pascualo was recovering to a new life. It seemed as though another being were inside him, and thinking for him. Anguish had put an edge on his intelligence. God was his only companion in that loneliness. With God he would have to reckon. And did God care if a man found his wife unfaithful? What a small detail that must seem to a Being as great as that! Just like a pair of rats down there on earth! No, much more important it must seem to God for a fellow to be good, and not answer treason with murder … murder!

Slowly the Rector turned back toward the Cabañal. How much better he felt, now! The cold breeze, rapidly growing stronger, had found a way into the furnace within him. But how weak and faint he felt! He had not eaten a mouthful since breakfast the day before. And his nose must have been broken by the fall, it pained him so! One! Two! A church bell rang in the distance. Two o'clock! What a night! And how it had flown! But the hours still to pass before morning would probably seem much longer!

As the Rector reached the road, he heard a boy's voice begin to sing. Some "cat" on the way to his boat. In fact, there the youngster was, on the other sidewalk, with two oars on his shoulder and a roll of nets under his arm.

The sight of the boy upset him again. Now the Rector understood that there were two Rectors under that one hide of his. One of them was the usual man he had always been – good-natured, taciturn, with kindly feelings for everybody. The other, a beast that began to roar and claw inside him at the thought of being deceived, and which snarled for blood in the presence of betrayal. And Pascualo laughed a shrill high-strung laugh! Pardon! Forgiveness! What a cowardly whimperer that other Rector was! See how the imbecile had sniffled at a lot of humbug memories back there near the tavern of siñá Tona! Lanudo! Just the name for a coward like that! Fine sentiments those had been to justify a man without the guts to protect his own dignity as a man! Such stuff might do very well for don Santiago! It was a curate's job to find pretty words and say them. But he was a sailor, thank God, with the life of a young bull in him; and if anybody tried funny business on him, by God, he would get what was coming to him, with some to boot. Lanudo! Coward!

And ashamed in his own eyes for his past weakness, the skipper began to thump his fists on his chest, swearing at himself in his other ridiculous personality, where he was so good-natured and easy-going. Forgiveness! Forgiveness might be all right in a graveyard. But he was living in a village where people were alive and knew each other. In a few hours they would be up and out on the streets, walking past him as that "cat" had just walked past, but nudging each other at sight of him and whispering: "There goes Pascualo el llanut!" Never! Ch – st, he would die first! His mother hadn't brought him into the world to be the butt of the whole Cabañal. First, Tonet! And then Dolores! And then every damned man who got in his way. And then – well, then, – what were jails for, anyway, but for men worth the salt they eat! And if it was worse than jail … ready for that, too. He might die at sea sometime, anyhow. Well, suppose they did squeeze his gullet up there on a scaffold! He would be dying like a sailor with good boards under his feet. And they would know they were garroting a man, and not a weakling!

He broke into a run, his elbows drawn in, and his head lowered, roaring as though he were running to grapple with a mortal enemy. In the dark he collided with posts and trees. But he did not care. A mad instinct to kill, to destroy, was carrying him wildly toward his dwelling.

He tore at the latch violently, but the door was locked. He began to pound and kick and throw himself against it, till the hinges and fastenings creaked under the blows. He opened his mouth to shout, insult the wretches inside, call to them to come out and be killed, spit upon their heads the terrible threats that were boiling in his feverish brain. But he could say nothing. His tongue seemed to be paralyzed in his throat. His whole strength had gone to his hands, that were pulling at the latch, and into his feet, that were eating into the wood of the door with the hobnails on his boots.

And all that was not enough. He would have done anything to fill those guilty rats with terror! And he stooped down, picked up a big stone, and hurled it with all his might into the door, which boomed in agony and made the whole house tremble.

Then silence! The Rector thought he heard several windows in the neighborhood opening cautiously at the uproar. He wanted vengeance, but he didn't have to make the whole town laugh in the meantime! A sense of the absurdity of the situation came over him – the thought of himself storming out there in the street while the lovers were inside quite comfortable. What a clown he would be if he were seen! He ran off around the corner of the house and crouched there in hiding. There was talking for a time and some laughter. Then the windows were closed again, and the street relapsed into complete silence.

The Rector had good eyes, trained to seeing far into the darkest nights. From his corner, the door of the house was quite visible. There he would stay till the sun came up, if need be. He would wait for his brother! His brother? No, for that dog of a Tonet! When the wretch came out … what a pity his knife wasn't handy! But he could kill him somehow, either strangle him, or perhaps pound his head in with a stone. Afterwards, he would go in and fix the woman, rip her open with the butcher-knife, or something of the sort. There was time to think of that. Something better, even, might occur to him while he was waiting.

Crouching at his corner there, the Rector began to think of all the tortures he had ever heard of, gloating over each new marvel of cruelty as he applied it, in foretaste, to the guilty pair, finally coming down to burning them alive on the open beach over a slow fire made of timber from the old boats. But how cold it was getting to be! And how sick he was feeling! The mad rage that had come over him at sight of the "cat" was passing, leaving him in a condition of general weakness and lassitude. He could barely lift his hand. The dampness of the night was getting into his bones, and his empty stomach gave him waves of nausea. Suffering did take hold of a fellow! How sick! How sick! Another reason for killing that pair of good-for-nothings! In the end they would finish him with worry and pain! He had grown old over night. It had all happened since sundown. And there he was, a strong man, unable to lift a finger!

One! Two! Three! Three o'clock! How time dragged on. But he did not move from his ambush, though he felt his limbs stiffening and his brain begin to fag. The thoughts of dire punishments had passed from his mind. That, indeed, had become a blank. What was he doing there? He couldn't quite remember at times – all his energies were so centered in his eyes, which not for a second even left that door of his house.

Half-past three had long since tolled when the Rector thought he heard the slight grating of a latch, and saw his door swing open. A form appeared on the threshold and stayed there for a second or two, as though the person were studying the street in both directions to see if any one were watching. There was another squeak, and a slight thud as the door closed. The Rector stood painfully up, his joints quite numb from the cold. At last his time had come! And he dashed forward on the run.

But the figure in front of the door was supported on a pair of wonderful legs. When it saw another man approaching, it gave one bound and went tearing off down the street. Early risers in the houses along the road heard the clatter of racing footsteps on the brick sidewalks as the pursuit swept by, a panting heart-breaking chase in the dark. The Rector could see a white spot in front of him, the pack of clothing the fugitive was carrying over his shoulder; but despite his best efforts, he realized that clew would soon be lacking; for the distance between him and his intended victim opened wider at every yard. Those bandy legs of his were just the thing to walk a deck in bad weather, but on the racetrack!.. Besides, that wait there hadn't done him any good, and Tonet had been famous as a runner when he was a little boy. At a crossroad, in fact, the white pack had vanished into void. Pascualo went hunting through the streets on either side, but he could not find even a footprint.

People were beginning to be up and about in the Cabañal, men, for the most part, who had work to do on the shore. And the Rector himself now fled, in terror at the thought that some one might see him. There was nothing left to be done now. He had lost all hope of vengeance. And shivering with cold, too weak to think even, resigned to whatever fate should have in store for him, he made his way toward the beach. Things were already stirring about the boats there. The dark sands were flecked all along with lanterns as the sailors went about their work. And here was another light – from the door of the tavern-boat. Roseta had just taken down the wooden shutter over the counter and she could be seen through the opening, wrapped in a shawl, her halo of blonde curly hair shooting rebellious strands out from under the kerchief over her head. She was still but half awake, and her face was pinched and blue from the cold. She was on the lookout for early customers, and a bottle of brandy with glasses was out on the board. Siñá Tona was still asleep in her stateroom. Knowing hardly what he was about, Pascualo turned in that direction, and did not stop till his elbow was on the counter.

"Give us a glass!" But Roseta, instead of obeying him, stood there looking at him with bright though expressionless eyes that seemed to penetrate to the innermost of his spirit. The Rector winced. That girl! That girl! What a keen one! She had caught everything at a glance! And the skipper, to get out of his hole, fell back on violence. "Good God! Have you got ears on your head? Give me a glass, I said." And a glass, for that matter, he really needed, to dispel the mortal lethargy that had settled on his whole body. A sober man he was! But he would drink, and drink and drink till he was drunk, and drown his torpor in alcohol!

And he downed a glass. And then another, and still a third, one gulp to each. His sister passed the drinks across the counter, but her eyes were still fixed upon him, as though she could read everything that had happened written out on his features in black and white. But he was feeling better, so much better! Nothing like aguardiente, to brace a fellow up! The damp chill of morning seemed to be burning off, all of a sudden, and a pleasant tingling began to run up and down just under his skin. The humor of the situation caught him now. How funny he must have looked beating it down the street as though the devil were after him, puffing like a porpoise! And then the world took on a rosy hue. He must be a good fellow, love everybody, and beginning with that girl there, his sister, who, for her part, had not taken her eyes off him once.

"Yes, why not tell the truth! You're the real credit to our family, Roseta girl! The rest of us? Hogs, hogs, beginning with me! Me! No, Roseta, you're all there – something nice, delicate-like, about you. You see through things, with the cleverest of them. But you say things – oh, I don't know – you say things, diplomatic-like, so's they don't come down on a fellow like a thousand of brick! Oh, I remember, I do! On the way home through the Grao, that day! Other people, they just rub it in, till you're ready to damn your soul. But it's what you've got up here, up here! Brains you've got, brains! You were right all these years. Scamps and puddingheads, puddingheads and scamps! And you're going at it right, I say. You keep the men away. You don't slobber all over them, and then lie to them, and make donkeys of them, and ruin them. No, you're a real girl, Roseta, better than the best of them."

With that liquid fire on his empty stomach, the Rector grew more and more emphatic as he talked on. His arms began to gesticulate, and his voice rose and rose, till his words were audible yards away.

"Is that you, Pascualo?" The call came from behind the curtains in Siñá Tona's stateroom, hoarse and halting, but affectionate withal.