Sónnica. Vicente Blasco Ibanez
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tramping through valleys and mountains, all will buy shoes and have their saddles mended. Very well; that enlivens business. But why have we been at work for over a year converting the Forum into a battlefield and turning every street into a fortress? At best you are in your shop extolling to a citizeness the elegance of a pair of papyrus sandals of Asiatic fashion, or of Greek buskins of great majesty, when you hear in the nearest plaza the clash of arms, shouts, death cries, and you rush to shut the door so that a stray missile will not nail you to your seat! And why? What reason is there for living like cats and dogs in the bosom of this Zacynthus, which used to be so tranquil and so industrious?"
"The pride and riches of the Greeks"——began his companion.
"Yes, I know that reason. The hatred between Iberians and Greeks; the belief that the latter, by their riches and wisdom, dominate and exploit the former—as if in the city there actually existed Iberians and Greeks! Iberians are those who are behind those mountains which mark off our horizon; a Greek is he whom we have seen disembark, and who is following our footsteps; but we are only sons of Zacynthus or of Saguntum, as they wish to call our city. We are the product of a thousand encounters by land and by sea, and Jupiter himself would be driven into a corner to tell who our grandparents were. Who can enumerate the people that have come here and have remained, in spite of others having come afterward to wrest from them the dominion of these lands and mines, since Zacynthus was bitten by the serpent in these fields, and our father Hercules raised the great walls of the Acropolis? Hither came the peoples of Tyre with their red sailed ships for the silver from the interior; the mariners from Zante fleeing with their families from the tyrants of their country; the Rutulian race from Ardea, people from Italy, who were powerful in the times when Rome did not as yet exist; Carthaginians of the epoch in which they thought more of commerce than of arms—and how do I know how many other peoples? You should hear the pedagogues when they explain our history on the portico of the temple of Diana! And I, do I know, perchance whether I am Greek or Iberian? My grandfather was a freedman from Sicily who came to take charge of a pottery and married a Celtiberian from the interior. My mother was a Lusitanian who came here on an expedition to sell gold dust to merchants from Alexandria. I call myself a Saguntine like all the rest. Those who consider themselves Iberians in Saguntum believe in the gods of the Greeks; the Greeks unconsciously adopt many Iberian customs; they think themselves different because they have divided the city in half and live separate; but their feasts are the same, and in the next Panathenæa you will see, together with the daughters of the Hellenic merchants, those of the citizens who cultivate the earth and who dress in coarse cloth and let their beards grow to more closely resemble the tribes of the interior."
"Yes, but the Greeks dominate everywhere, they are masters of everything, they have taken possession of the life of the city."
"They are the wisest, the bravest; they have something almost divine about them," said the shoemaker sententiously. "See if that is not true of the one who is following us. He is poorly dressed; perhaps he has not an obolus in his pocket for supper; perhaps he will sleep beneath the open sky, and yet, it seems as if Zeus had come down from the heavens in disguise to visit us."
The two artisans turned their gaze instinctively to look at the Greek, and continued on their way. They had arrived near the huts which formed an animated town around the port.
"There is another reason," said the leather-worker, "for the war which divides us. It is not only the hatred between Greeks and Iberians, it is because some want us to be friends of Rome and others of Carthage."
"We should not affiliate with either," said the shoemaker tersely. "Tranquilly carrying on our commerce as in other times is the way in which we should prosper best. I reproach the Greeks of Saguntum for having allied us with Rome."
"Rome is the conqueror."
"Yes, but Rome is very far away, and the Carthaginians are almost at our doors. Troops from New Carthage can come here by a few days' journey."
"Rome is our ally and she will protect us. Her legates, who leave to-morrow, have put an end to our strifes, beheading the citizens who disturbed the peace of the city."
"Yes, but those citizens were friends of Carthage and old-time protégés of Hamilcar. Hannibal will not easily forget his father's friends."
"Bah! Carthage wants peace and wide commerce to enrich herself. Since her defeat in Sicily she fears Rome."
"The senators may be afraid, but Hamilcar's son is very young, and, for my part, I am afraid of these boys converted into chiefs, who forget wine and love to dream only of glory."
The Greek could hear no more. The two artisans had disappeared among the huts, and the echo of their argument was lost in the distance.
The stranger was alone in the unfamiliar port. The wharves were deserted; lights began to glisten on the poops of the ships, and in the distance, over the waters of the bay, rose the moon like an enormous honey-colored disk. Only in the small fishermen's ports lingered animation. The women, naked from above the waist, tucking between their legs the rags which served them as a tunic, walked into the water up to their knees to wash the fish, and then putting them into broad baskets on their heads they took up their journey, dragging their big-bellied, naked youngsters after them. From the silent and motionless ships came groups of men who traveled toward the wretched settlement spread around the foot of the temple. They were sailors going in search of taverns and brothels.
The Greek knew those customs well; it was a port like many others he had seen—the temple on the hill to guide the navigator, and below, wine in abundance, easy love, and the sanguinary fight as a termination of the feast. He thought for a moment of starting on the journey to the city, but the way was long, he did not know the road, and he preferred to remain, sleeping where he could until sunrise.
He had entered one of the winding lanes formed by the hovels thrown together at hazard, as if they had fallen in confusion from the sky, with their walls of earth and roofs of reeds and straw, with narrow slits for light, and with only a few rags sewn together or a bit of threadbare tapestry, for a door. In some, with less wretched exteriors, dwelt the modest traders of the port, ship chandlers, dealers in grain, and those who, with the assistance of slaves, brought casks of water from the springs in the valley to the vessels; but the majority of the hovels were taverns and lupanars.
Some of the houses had alongside the doors signs in Greek, Iberian, or Latin, painted with red ochre.
The Greek heard some one calling him. It was a little, bald, fat man beckoning from the door of his dwelling.
"Greeting, son of Athens!" he said, to flatter him with the name of the most famous city of Greece. "Come in! Here you will be among your own, for my forefathers also came from Athens. See the sign on my tavern, 'To Pallas Athene'. Here you will find wine from Laurona, as excellent as that from Attica; if you wish to try the Celtiberian beer, I have it also, and if you desire, I can serve you with a certain flask of wine from Samos, as authentic as the goddess of Athens which adorns my counter."
The Greek answered with a smile and a shake of his head, while the loquacious tavern-keeper went into his hut, lifting the tapestry to allow a group of mariners to enter.
After a few steps he stopped, attracted by a faint whistle which seemed to be calling him from the interior of a cabin. An old woman, wrapped in a black mantle, stood in her doorway making signs to him. Within, by the light of an earthen lamp hanging by a slender chain, he could see several women squatting on mats in the attitude of placid beasts, with no other sign of life than a fixed smile which displayed their shining teeth.
"I am in haste, good mother," said the stranger, smiling.
"Stay awhile, son of Zeus!" urged the old woman in the Hellenic idiom, disfigured by the harshness of her accent and by the hiss of breathing between toothless gums. "The moment I saw you I knew you for a Greek. All who come from your country are gay and beautiful; you look like Apollo seeking his celestial sisters. Enter! Here you will find them——"
Approaching the stranger, and catching him by the border of his chlamys, she enumerated the charms of her Iberian, Balearic, or African wards; some majestic and grand like Juno, others small and graceful like the hetæræ of Alexandria