-Xxviii- · II

He pushed it with the softness of a cat sheathing its claws... The cursed door had a habit of creaking; but so gentle was the push that it scarcely groaned. Perucho stole into the room, hiding behind the screen. Through one of its many holes he looked across towards the cradle. He saw the child asleep, and the nurse, face down upon Nucha’s bed, snoring heavily. There was no fear of waking that dormouse: the lad could carry out his purpose in peace.

Yet it was desirable that the baby should not wake, lest she alarm the house with her crying. Perucho took her up as one takes a glass doll, brittle and precious: his calloused palms and his arms, accustomed to throwing stones and punching the oxen’s brows, acquired all at once an exquisite delicacy, and the baby, wrapped in her knitted shawl, did not even whimper on exchanging the bed for the arms of her youthful abductor. Holding his breath, treading with stealthy, swift, and cautious step—the gait of a cat carrying her kittens between her teeth—he made his way towards the cloister, for crossing the kitchen invited discovery.

In the cloister he paused about ten seconds to reflect. Where should he hide his treasure? In the hayloft, the barn, the granary, the stable? He chose the hórreo—the least frequented and darkest spot. He would go down the stairs, thread the cloister, pass through the stables, cross the threshing-floor, and hide in the granary. No sooner said than done.

Resting against the granary was the ladder. Perucho began to mount, a difficult operation given the encumbrance of the child. The narrow vertical rungs required hands and feet in climbing: Perucho had no hands free; his willpower passed into his big toe, which seemed almost prehensile as it gripped the wooden bars polished by use. Halfway up he thought he was rolling down, and pressed the child to his chest; she woke and burst into tears... Let her cry! No living soul could hear her; only half a dozen hens wandered across the threshing-floor, disputing cabbage leaves with two pigs. Perucho entered triumphant through the granary door...

The ears of maize did not fill it to the roof, leaving space enough for two tiny persons like Perucho and his charge to settle themselves. The boy sat down without letting go of the baby, telling her playful coaxing words to soothe her, with that tender fondness typical of peasant speech.

“Little queen, pretty one, little dove, hush, hush, I will give you pretty, pretty things... If you don’t hush, the bogeyman will come and eat you! See, here he comes! Hush, little sunshine, white dove, little rose!”

Not by virtue of his warnings, but through recognising her favourite friend, the child fell silent. She looked at him, smiled joyfully, passed her hands over his face, chuckled, drooled, and gazed curiously around. The place surprised her. Before her, around her, beneath her, she was surrounded by a sea of golden maize-cobs which tumbled in soft cascades at Perucho’s slightest movement, and where the sun, penetrating the granary lattice, cast bright ribbons and shifting stripes of light. Perucho saw that the maize-cobs afforded an invaluable means of amusing the little one. Now he placed one in her hand, now built a pyramid with several; baby delighted in knocking it down, or fancied she did, though Perucho’s kick worked the miracle. She laughed like mad, and asked impatiently with gestures for the game to begin again.

Soon she tired of it. Yet she remained in good humour, thanks to Perucho’s company. Her sweet, smiling gaze, fixed upon her companion, seemed to say: “What better play than being together? Let us enjoy this happiness so sparingly allowed us.” Seeing these affectionate dispositions, Perucho gave himself up to pet her at his ease. Now he pressed a finger into her cheek to make her laugh; now mimicked a lizard, crawling his hand up her body with wriggling motions; now pretended to be angry, staring wild-eyed, puffing his cheeks, clenching his fists, and snorting fiercely; now, lifting her up, raised her high and feigned to drop her upon the maize-cobs. Finally, fearing to tire her, he took her in his arms, sat cross-legged, and began to rock and croon to her softly, with as much gentleness, care, and tenderness as her own mother could show.

What longing, what violent cravings passed through him!... For what? When admitted to the privacy of Nucha’s room and allowed to approach the baby and share her life, he had never dared do it... Fear of being scolded or turned out; vague religious respect imposed upon his mischievous soul; shame; lack of habit in lips that kissed no one—all combined to prevent him satisfying an aspiration he deemed ambitious and almost sacrilegious... But now he was master of the treasure; now the baby belonged to him; he had won her in fair fight, possessed her by right of conquest—that right which even savages understand! He thrust forward his lips, as if about to taste some sweetmeat, and touched the little one’s forehead and eyes... Then he slowly unfolded the shawl and uncovered her legs, warm as cracklings, which, no sooner freed, began to dance with joyful kicks. Perucho raised one foot to his mouth, then the other, spending a good while in this manner; his kisses tickled the child, who broke into sudden chuckles and then grew serious; but soon she felt the cold, and with that rapidity with which very young children change temperature, her little feet became almost frozen. Perucho noticed it at once, and breathing upon them repeatedly, as he had seen cows do with their calves, wrapped them in swaddling-clothes and shawl, and drawing the infant to him once more, rocked her gently.

The most glorious conqueror surpassed not Perucho in pride and satisfaction at such moments, when he deemed it certain that he had saved the baby from slaughter and put her in safe keeping where no one would find her. Not for a minute did he recall the stern, bronze grandfather lying yonder by the wall... Often a child, weeping at his mother’s corpse, is comforted by a toy or a box of sweets; sadness and remembrance may return later, but the chief impression of grief is erased for ever. So it was with Perucho. The bliss of possessing his adored baby and the glory of saving her life diverted him from the tragic events. He did not remember his grandfather, nor the shot that had felled him as he felled partridges.

Yet something fearful and gloomy must have weighed upon his fancy, judging by the tale he began to recite in a hollow voice to the baby, as though she could understand him. Whence came this tale, a variant of the ogre legend? Had Perucho heard it at some fireside while the old women spun and the girls shelled chestnuts? Was it a creation of his mind, excited by the terrors of so extraordinary a day? “Once upon a time,” the tale began, “there was a very wicked king who ate live people... This king had a baby girl, pretty as a May flower and tiny as a grain of maize. And the wicked king wanted to eat her, for he was the bogeyman, with a face uglier than the devil... (Perucho made hideous grimaces to express the king’s ugliness). And one night he said: ‘I’ll eat the baby early tomorrow morning, like this, like this.’ (He snapped his jaws together like cathedral automations). And there was a little bird in a tree, who heard the king and said: ‘Eat her you shall not, ugly bogey.’ And what does the bird do? Flied in through the window while the king slept. (He laid his head on the maize and snored loudly to mimic the king’s sleep). And the bird pecks out one of his eyes, leaving him one-eyed. (He winked his left eye). And the king woke up weeping and wailing for his eye, while the bird laughed in the tree... And said: ‘If you spare the baby and give her to me, I will return your eye...’ And the king said: ‘Agreed...’ And the bird married the baby, and was always singing lovely tunes and playing the bagpipes... and I went in by one door and out by the other, and the king bids me tell it all over again!”

Baby did not hear the end of the tale... The music of the words, which conveyed no ideas to her, the warmth she had regained, and the pleasure of being with her favourite brought back her former slumber, and Perucho, when he raised the usual clamour at the end of bogey tales, saw her eyes closed... He arranged the bed of maize-cobs as best he could, drew the shawl over her face as Nucha did that her little nose might not grow cold, and resolutely determined to keep watch, took his post by the granary door, leaning against a heap of maize. But whether from stillness, or fatigue, or the reaction of so many emotions, his own head grew heavy and his eyelids drooped. He rubbed them with his fingers, yawned, and struggled against sleep... Sleep conquered at last. The two angels in the granary slept in peace.

Amid the visions of an anguished nightmare that troubled Perucho, the lad saw an enormous beast, a fierce monster approaching him, roaring and ready to swallow him at a mouthful or tear him with its claws... His hair stood on end, his flesh trembled, and cold sweat bathed his temples... What a frightful monster! It draws near... falls upon Perucho... its claws sink into his flesh, its huge body crushes him like a rock... The boy opens his eyes...

Panting and furious, shouting, cuffing and boxing his ears at her pleasure, tearing his curly hair and kicking him, stood the nurse, more enormous and brutal than ever. We must record that Perucho behaved like a hero. Lowering his head, he blocked the granary entrance, and for some minutes defended his prize, making a wall of his body... But the nurse’s huge bulk bore him down and reduced him to inaction, crushing and paralysing him. When the wretched boy, half-choked, found himself freed from that leaden statue which had almost flattened him into a wafer, he looked behind... The child had vanished. Perucho will never forget the despairing tears he shed for more than half an hour, rolling among the maize-cobs.