Juanita la Larga: a Novel

Chapter 15

Chapter 15 T he solemnities of the fourth of August began at daybreak in a thunderous manner: a general pealing of bells. A multitude of people, both from Villalegre and from a number of nearby towns, milled about, either moving in the direction of the square where the fair continued as it did the night before, or clustering along the route the procession was to take upon exiting the parish church of Saint Dominic, and to which it would return after having paraded in stately fashion through the main streets. The latter had been thoroughly swept and then carpeted with sedge and broom. Numerous residents were waiting to watch the procession pass by, and they stood in doorways, at windows, and on balconies, from whose grilles and railings hung colorful tapestries of yellow, green, and red damask, or cotton bedspreads printed with enormous flowers and bordered with snow-white, pleated flounces. The entire town was all dressed up. The men were clean-shaven, because every barbershop had remained open the previous evening until well past midnight; the richest and most important señores, all those accorded the courtesy title “Don,” were in frock coat and top hat, and two or three, the clerk being one of them, were even in tails. Day laborers, sporting a clean shirt and their best clothes, went without a coat if they were young, but carried a staff or a long quince, olive, or ash stick; if they were older, they wore a cape to observe the proprieties, because in those parts a cape was de rigueur on a formal occasion, and one cannot do without it even if the human race roasts or melts, which was then the case because the sun was beating down. 70 Juanita la Larga 71 Women of every social class had taken out their Sunday best to wear that day. Not a single one was bareheaded. All of them, if they did not have a mantilla, wore light woolen shawls, or else scarfs, that people there call seáticos, made of a highly lustrous percale that looks and feels like silk. Elderly, well-to-do ladies wore black or dark dresses of taffeta, Málaga serge, or bombazine and shalloon; and the se- ñoritas, their daughters, wore dresses made of muslin and other airy, diaphanous fabrics, but none went without a mantilla, either of embroidered tulle or blond from Catalonia or La Mancha.1 In addition to the neatness and tidiness of the hairdo, there glittered next to the tortoiseshell combs, like a thicket at the foot of a lofty tower, ribbons of jasmines, basil and other aromatic herbs, roses, and white, yellow, red, and variegated carnations. Flowers abounded in Villalegre, thanks to the fountain on communal land whose miraculous properties we have already praised, and thanks also to free-flowing streams that spring up between rocks at the base of the adjoining sierra, and to several norias and not a few freshwater wells, with which gardens, flowerpots, and flower beds are watered. Through the wrought-iron gates of the best houses you could see flower-filled patios, in some of which orange trees and acacias provided pleasant shade. And climbing plants rose along the walls, forming a dense display around second-floor windows. In the center of the patio, either a jet that emptied into a basin of polished red jasper refreshed the atmosphere, or a great pyramid of earthenware pots rose to create a compact mass of flowers and greenery. Dragonflies and butterflies fluttered about and wasps and bees buzzed around searching for honey. The territory or boundary of Villalegre borders on the countryside , where it is all arable or uncultivated land with neither gardens 1. La Mancha, in central Spain, is famous as the birthplace of Don Quixote. nor olive trees nor vineyards. If anything looks green in those fields it is the occasional melon patch in the hollows. All the rest is the color of straw in that season, whether it be sown or fallow land, or stubbles, which go up in flames like tinder and are usually burned to fertilize the soil. The plants that grow most in that area, and give the most shade, are agaves, while the thistles and sunflowers are the most arborescent and ligneous ones. Thus it is that in homes people cook with a certain animal product, which not only provides heat, but also gives off a...