The little woman wiped away her tears, and became again the brave, strong woman accustomed to the labour of a beast of burden to keep up her house. She cast an amazed glance around. Things could not stay like that. The child in the bed and everything in disorder! The "Bishop" must be laid out for his last journey, he must be dressed in white, pure and resplendent as the dawn, whose name he bore.
And with the instinct of a superior being born for practical life, with the power of imposing obedience on others, she began to give orders to all the women who vied in doing some service for the family they had hitherto cursed so vehemently.
She would go to Valencia with two companions to buy the shroud and the coffin. Others went to the village, or scattered about among the neighbouring farm-houses in search of the objects which Pepeta charged them to procure.
Even the hateful Pimentó who remained invisible, had to contribute to these preparations. His wife met him on the road and ordered him to look for some musicians for the evening. They were, like himself, vagabonds and drunkards; he would certainly find them at Copa's. And the bully, who seemed preoccupied that day, listened to his wife's words without reply and endured the imperious tone in which she spoke to him, gazing down at the ground as though ashamed.
Since the previous night he felt himself transformed. That man who had defied and insulted him and kept him shut up in his own house like a timid hen; his wife, who for the first time had imposed her will upon him and taken his musket away; his lack of courage to face his victim, who was wholly in the right; all these reasons kept him confused and crushed.
He was no longer the Pimentó of other days; he began to know himself and even to suspect that all the things done against Batiste and his family amounted to a crime. There even came a moment when he despised himself. What a man he was!... All the mean tricks of himself and the other neighbours had served only to take the life of a poor child. And as was his custom in dark days, when some trouble made him frown, he marched off to the tavern, seeking the consolations that Copa kept in his famous wine-barrel in the corner.
At ten in the morning, when Pepeta and her two companions returned from the city, the house was filled with people.
Some men who were very slow and heavy and domestic, who had taken little part in the crusade against the strangers, formed a group with Batiste in the door of the farm-house; some squatting, in Moorish fashion, others seated in rush-chairs, smoking and speaking slowly of the weather and the crops.
Inside, women and more women, pressing around the bed, deafening the mother with their talk; some speaking of the sons they had lost, others installed in corners as though they were in their own homes, gossiping about all the rumours of the neighbourhood. That day was extraordinary; it made no difference that their houses were dirty and that dinner must be cooked; there was an excuse. The children clinging to their skirts wept and deafened everybody with their cries, some wanting to return home, others begging to be shown the "Bishop."
Some old women took possession of the cupboard and every moment prepared big glasses of sugared wine and water, offering them to Teresa and her daughter so they could weep more comfortably, and when the poor creatures, swollen by this sugary inundation, declined to drink, the officious old gossips took turns in swallowing the refreshments themselves, for they also needed to recover from their sorrow.