In the door of the cabin stood his wife surrounded by the little ones, waiting impatiently, for the supper hour had already passed.
Batiste looked at the fields, and all the fury he had suffered an hour ago before the Tribunal of the Waters, returned at a stroke and like a furious wave flooded his consciousness.
His wheat was thirsty. He had only to see it; its leaves shrivelled, the green colour, before so lustrous, now of a yellow transparency. The irrigation had failed him; the turn of which Pimentó, with his sly and evil tricks, had robbed him, would not belong to him until fifteen days had passed, because the water was scarce; and on top of this misfortune all that damned string of pounds and sous for a fine. Christ!
He ate without any appetite, telling his wife the while of the occurrence at the Tribunal.
Poor Teresa listened to her husband, pale with the emotion of the countrywoman who feels a pang in her heart when there must be a loosening of the knot of the stocking which guards the money in the bottom of the chest. Sovereign queen! They had determined to ruin them! What sorrow at the evening-meal!
And letting her spoon fall into the frying-pan of rice, she wept, swallowing her tears. Then she became red with sudden passion, looked out at the expanse of plain with she saw in front of her door, with its white farm-houses and its waves of green, and stretching out her arms, she cried: "Rascals! Rascals!"
The little folks, frightened by their father's scowl, and the cries of their mother, were afraid to eat. They looked from one to the other with indecision and wonder, picked at their noses to be doing something, and all of them ended by imitating their mother and weeping over the rice.
Batiste, agitated by the chorus of sobs, arose furiously, and almost kicked over the little table as he flung himself out of the house.
What an afternoon! The thirst of his wheat and the remembrance of the fine were like two fierce dogs tearing at his heart. When one, tired of biting him, was going to sleep, the other arrived at full speed and fixed his teeth in him.
He wanted to distract his thoughts, to forget himself in work, and he gave himself over with all his will to the task he had in hand, a pigsty which he was putting up in the corral.