She was mistaken. At that moment the poor father had no other children in the world but his crops, the poor sick wheat, shrivelling, drying, and crying out to him, begging for a swallow in order not to die.
And of this he thought while his wife was getting the supper ready. Roseta was bustling about pretending to be busy, in order not to attract attention and expecting from one moment to the next an outburst of terrible anger. But Batiste, seated before the little dwarfish table, surrounded by all the young people of his family, who were gazing greedily by the candle-light at the earthenware dish, filled with smoking hake and potatoes, went on thinking of his fields.
The woman was still sighing, pondering the fine; making comparisons, without doubt, between the fabulous sum which they were going to wrest from her, and the ease with which the entire family were eating.
Batiste, contemplating the voracity of his children, scarcely ate. Batistet, the eldest son, even appropriated with feigned abstraction of the pieces of bread belonging to the little ones. To Roseta, fear gave a fierce appetite.
Never until then did Batiste comprehend the load which was weighing upon his shoulders. These mouths which opened to swallow up the meagre savings of the family would be without food if that land outside should dry.
And all for what? On account of the injustice of men, because there are laws made to molest honest workmen.... He should not stand this. His family before everything else. Did he not feel capable of defending his own from even greater dangers? Did he not owe them the duty of maintaining them? He was capable of becoming a thief in order to give them food. Why then, did he have to submit, when he was not trying to steal, but to give life to his crops, which were all his own?
The image of the canal, which at a short distance was dragging along its murmuring supply for others, was torturing him. It enraged him that life should be passing by at his very door without his being able to profit by it, because the laws wished it so.
Suddenly he arose, like a man who has adopted a resolution and who in order to fulfil it, stamps everything under foot.
"To irrigate! To irrigate!"
The woman was terrified, for she quickly guessed all the danger of the desperate resolution. For Heaven's sake, Batiste!... They would impose upon him a greater fine; perhaps the Tribunal, offended by his rebellion, would take the water away from him forever! He ought to consider it.... It was better to wait.