The Torrent | Page 2

wafted the perfume of the blossoming orchards
through the narrow lanes of the ancient town.
Once, years before, he had been in Italy on a Catholic pilgrimage,
entrusted by his mother to the care of a priest from Valencia, who
would not think of returning to Spain without paying a visit to don
Carlos. A memory of a Venetian calle now came back to Rafael's mind
as he traversed the streets of old Alcira--shadowy, cramped, sunk deep
as wells between rows of high houses. With all the economy of a city
built on an island, Alcira rears its edifices higher and higher as its
population grows, leaving just enough space free for the bare needs of
traffic.
The streets were deserted. The noisy, orchard workers who had
welcomed Rafael had gone back to the fields again. All the idlers had
fled to the cafés, and as the deputy walked smartly by in front of these,
warm waves of air came out upon him through the windows, with the
clatter of poker chips, the noise of billiard balls, and the uproar of
heated argument.
Rafael reached the Suburban Bridge, one of the two means of egress
from the Old City. The Júcar was combing its muddy, reddish waters

on the piles of the ancient structure. A number of row-boats, made fast
to the houses on the shore, were tugging at their moorings. Rafael
recognized among them the fine craft that he had once used for lonely
trips on the river. It lay there quite forgotten, gradually shedding its
coat of white paint out in the weather.
Then he looked at the bridge itself; the Gothic-arched gate, a relic of
the old fortifications; the battlements of yellowish, chipped rock, which
looked as if all the rats of the river had come at night to nibble at them;
then two niches with a collection of mutilated, dust-laden images--San
Bernardo, patron Saint of Alcira, and his estimable sisters. Dear old
San Bernardo, alias Prince Hamete, son of the Moorish king of Carlet,
converted to Christ by the mystic poesy of the Christian cult,--and still
wearing in his mangled forehead the nail of martyrdom!
As Rafael walked past the rude, disfigured statue he thought of all the
stories his mother, an uncompromising clerical and a woman of
credulous faith, had told him of the patron of Alcira, particularly the
legend of the enmity and struggle between San Vicente and San
Bernardo, an ingenuous fancy of popular superstition.
Saint Vincent, who was an eloquent preacher arrived at Alcira on one
of his tours, and stopped at a blacksmith's shop near the bridge to get
his donkey shod. When the work was done the horseshoer asked for the
usual price for his labor; but San Vicente, accustomed to living on the
bounty of the faithful, waxed indignant, and looking at the Júcar,
exclaimed, vindictively:
"Some day folks will say: 'This is where Alcira used to be'."
"Not while Bernardo is here!" the statue of San Bernardo remarked
from its pedestal.
And there the statue of the saint still stood, like an eternal sentinel,
watching over the Júcar to exorcise the curse of the rancorous Saint
Vincent! To be sure the river would rise and overflow its banks every
year, reaching to the very feet of San Bernardo sometimes, and coming
within an ace of pulling the wily saint down from his perch. It is also

true that every five or six years the flood would shake houses loose
from their foundations, destroy good farm land, drown people, and
commit other horrible depredations--all in obedience to the curse of
Valencia's patron; but the saint of Alcira was the better man of the two
for all of that! And, if you didn't believe it, there the city was, still
planted firmly on its feet and quite unscathed, except for a scratch here
and there from times when the rains were exceptionally heavy and the
waters came down from Cuenca in a great roaring torrent!
With a smile and a nod to the powerful saint, as to an old friend of
childhood, Rafael crossed the bridge and entered the arrabal, the "New
City," ample, roomy, unobstructed, as if the close-packed houses of the
island, to get elbow-room and a breath of air, had stampeded in a flock
to the other bank of the river, scattering hither and thither in the
hilarious disorder of children let loose from school.
The deputy paused at the head of the street on which his club was
located. Even from there he could hear the talking and laughing of the
many members, who had gathered in much greater number than usual
because of his arrival. What would he be in for down there? A speech,
probably! A speech on local politics! Or, if not a speech, idle