Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda

touch the lower leaves—I liked touching them because their underbelly was white—but now I could hardly reach them. Soon after crossing the bridge you could hear the waterfall. The path dipped, then gradually turned away from the river till it finally ended in front of a cluster of thick-trunked trees that surrounded a circle of rocks. The spring stood in the center; it was not dark, dappled sun danced on the ground, and the mountain loomed in the distance. When I was little I had been frightened by the worm-filled spring that always spewed water; it was something alive that I couldn’t understand. The rocks where the water gushed were covered by a dense climber with white-flecked blossoms; the water that collected at the fountain trickled off, down a canal adorned with blue buttercups. Taking hold of my child’s hand, I remembered myself at her age, my fear, my father, the first day my wife showed me the child and told me to look at her, saying she’s just like me (the midwife who birthed her wanted to show her to me, but I didn’t want to look because of all that had happened). The child stood still, her hand in mine, gazing at the buttercups. Bees were drinking, buzzing round the rocks and canal. I picked a buttercup and offered it to my daughter, but she didn’t want it and knocked it out of my hand; when I stooped to pick it up, she said she wanted black night. Two women carrying buckets joined us in the dark shadow of the trees; they glanced at me and began to laugh. One was young and tall with protruding eyes, like all the old women in the village. The other was short, her braided hair falling across her breast, all the way down to her waist. They approached the fountain, the protruding eyes staring straight at me, laughing all the while. The whole village had done the same, ever since the child was born. When the woman laughed, I sensed she was thinking the same thing the children did when they caught sight of me with the child and cried deformed, deformed with their hands cupped in front of their mouths, just as they had shouted, go with the ugly girl, the ugly girl. Now the children had grown up, and the youngest had learnt spiteful things from their elders. The braid was filtering the water when, all at once, she threw a handful on my child. She started to scream: a tiny, spark-size worm was curling and uncurling on her hand. The woman said my daughter was a child with corrupted blood. And a crybaby. They began talking to each other, but before they began to speak, I asked them how they would like to find a worm on their skin; they paid no mind. They talked as if they were on their own, but everything they said was for my benefit. They said both my wife and daughter bore withered arms. I had had the prettiest mother in the village, jealous of newlyweds, a woman who died, consumed by some kind of inexplicable rage. The braid stared at me with black eyes. She looked at me as though I were a tree or grass. She said I should be ashamed, should have been thrashed from time to time after my father had died, instead of disgracing myself by climbing into bed with my stepmother. The protruding eyes said my dead father had wanted an indecent death. They had killed his desire because they realized right away what he was doing . . . he was obstinate. And they couldn’t finish killing him because his soul had enveloped him with such a dense mantle. The braid spoke up, so he went to bed with his stepmother who has a flowerpot with one bloom. The protruding, stark-white eyes doubled forward with laughter, and the braided one doubled backwards, laughing even harder, like two mad women. At that moment the ivy on the fountain shook. It was the blacksmith’s son. The braid stopped laughing and shouted, you think we don’t hear you, you think we don’t see you, you think we don’t know you spy on everyone. I’ll tell your mother to strap you to the bed again. My child began to shout, come out, come out. As soon as the