3 Page Essay based on 3 short stories

EL MATADERO

Although the following narrative is historical, I shall not begin

It with Noah's ark and the genealogy of his forbears as was wont

once to be done by the ancient Spanish historians of America who

should be our models, Numerous reasons I might adduce for not

pursuing their example, but I shall pass them over in order to

avoid prolixity, stating merely that the events here narrated occurred

in the 1830's of our Christian era, Moreover, it was during

Lent, a time when meat is scarce in Buenos Aires because the

church, adopting Epictetus' precept-sustine abstine (suffer, abstain)-

orders vigil and abstinence to the stomachs of the faithful

because carnivorousness is sinful and, as the proverb says,

leads to carnality. And since the Church has, ab initio and through

God's direct dispensation, spiritual sway over consciences and

stomachs, which in no way belong to the individual, nothing is

more just and reasonable than for it to forbid that which is both

harmful and sinful.

The purveyors of meat, on the other hand, who are staunch

Federalists and therefore devout Catholics, knowing that the people

of Buenos Aires possess singular docility when it comes to submitting

themselves to all manner of restrictions, used to bring to

the Slaughter House during Lent only enough steers for feeding the

children and the sick whom the Papal Bull excused, and had no

intention of stuffing the heretics-of which there is no dearth-

who are always ready to violate the meat commandments of the

church and demoralize society by their bad examples.

At this time, then, rain was pouring down incessantly. The

roads were inundated; in the marshes water stood deep enough

for swimming, and the streets leading to the city were flooded

with watery mire. A tremendous stream rushed forth from the

Barracas rivulet and majestically spread out its turbid waters to

the very foot of the Alto slopes. The Plata, overflowing, enraged,

pushed back the water that was seeking its bed and made it rush,

swollen, over fields, embankments, house$, and spread like a huge

lake-over the lowlands. Encircled from north to east by a girdle

of water and mud, and from the south by a whitish sea on whose

surface small craft bobbed perilously and on which were reflected

chimneys and treetops, the city from its towers and slopes cast

anxious glances to the horizon as if imploring mercy from the

Lord. It seemed to be the threat of a new deluge. Pious men and

women wept as they busied themselves with their novenaries and

continuous prayers. In church preachers thundered and made the

pulpit creak under the blows of their fists. This is the day of

judgment, they proclaimed, the end of the world is approaching!

God's wrath runs over, pouring forth an inundation. Alas you

poor sinners! Alas you impious Unitarians who mock the Church

and the Saints and hearken not with veneration to the word of

those anointed by the Lord! Alas you who do not beg mercy at

the foot of the altars! The fearful hour of futile gnashing of teeth

and frantic supplications has come! Your impiety, your heresies,

your blasphemies. your horrid crimes, have brought to our land

the Lord's plagues. Justice and the God of the Federalists will,

.

damn you.

The wretched women left the church breathless, overwhelmed,

blaming the Unitarians, as was natural, for this calamity.

However, the torrential rainfall continued and the waters

rose, adding credence to the predictions of the preachers. The

bells tolled plaintively by order of the most Catholic Restorer,

who was rather uneasy. The libertines, the unbelievers, that is

to say, the Unitarians were frightened at seeing so many contrite

faces and hearing such clamor of imprecations. There was much

talk about a procession which the entire population was to attend

barefoot and bareheaded, accompanying the Host, which was to

be carried under a pallium by the Bishop to the Balcarce slope,

where thousands of voices exorcising the demon of inundation

were to implore divine mercy.

Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, for it might have been

something worth seeing, the ceremony did not take place, because

the Plata receded and the overflow gradually subsided without

the benefit of conjuration or prayer.

Now what concerns my story above all is that, because of

the inundation, the Convalescencia Slaughter House did not see

a single head of cattle for fifteen days and that, in one or two

days, all the cattle from nearby farmers and watercarriers were

used 'hp in supplying the city with meat. The unfortunate little

children and sick people had to ~at eggs and chickens, and for-

eigners and heretics bellowed for beefsteak and roast. Abstinence

from meat was general in the town which never was more worthy

of the blessing of the church, and those it was that millions and

millions of plenary indulgences were showered upon it. Chickens

went up to six pesos and eggs to four reales and fish became

exceedingly expensive. During Lent there were no promiscuities

and things happened as if in a dream.

In the Slaughter House not even one rat remained alive from

the many thousands which used to find shelter there. All of them

either perished from starvation or were drowned in their holes by

the incessant rain. Innumerable Negro women who go around

after offal, like vultures after carrion, spread over the city like

so many harpies ready to devour whatever they found eatable.

Gulls and dogs, their inseparable rivals in the Slaughter House,

emigrated to the open fields in search of animal food. Sickly old

men wasted away for the lack of nutritive broth; but the most

remarkable event was the rather sudden death of a few heretic

foreigners who committed the folly of glutting on sausages from

Extremadura, on ham and dry codfish, and who departed to the

other world to pay for the sin of such abominations.

Some physicians were of the opinion that if the shortage of

meat continued, half the town would fall in fainting fits, since

their stomachs were accustomed to the stimulating meat juice;

and the discrepancy was quite noticeable between this melancholy

prognosis of science and the anathemas broadcast from the pulpit

by the reverend fathers against all kinds of animal nutrition and

promiscuity during days set aside by the Church for fasting and

penitence. Therefore a sort of intestinal war between stomachs

and consciences began, stirred by an inexorable appetite and the

not less inexorable vociferations of the ministers of the Church,

who, as is their duty, tolerated no sin whatsoever which might

tend to slacken Catholic principles. In addition to all this, there

existed a state of intestinal flatulence in the population, brought

on by fish and beans and other somewhat indigestible fare.

This war manifested itself in sighs and strident shrieks during

the sermons as well as in noises and sudden. Explosions issuing

from the houses and the streets of the city and wherever

people congregated. The Restorer's government, as paternal as

it is foreseeing, became somewhat alarmed, believing these tumults

to be revolutionary in origin arid attributing them to the savage

Unitarians, whose impiety, according to Federalist preachers, had

brought upon the nation the deluge of divine wrath. The Government,

therefore, took provident steps. scattered its henchmen

around town, and, finally, appeasing consciences and stomachs,

decreed Wisely and piously that without further delay and floods

notwithstanding, cattle be brought to the Slaughter Houses.

Accordingly, on the sixteenth day of the meat crisis, the eve

of Saint Dolores' day, a herd of fifty fat steers swam across the,

Burgos pass on their way to the Alto Slaughter House. Of course,

this was not much considering that the tone consumed daily from

250 to 300 and that at least one-third of the population enjoyed

the Church dispensation of eating meat. Strange that there should

be privileged stomachs and stomachs subjected to an inviolable

law, and that the Church should hold the key to all stomachs!

But it is not so strange if one believes that through meat the

devil enters the body, and that the Church has the power to conjure it.

The thing is to reduce man to a machine whose prime

mover is not his own free will but that of the Church and the

government. Perhaps the day will come when it will be prohibited

to breathe, to take walks and even to chat with a friend without

previous permission from competent, authorities. Thus it was,

more or less, in the happy days of our pious grandparents, unfortunately

since ended by the May Revolution.

Be that as it may, when the news about the action of the

government spread, the Alto Slaughter House filled with butchers,

offal collectors, and inquisitive folk who received with much applause

and outcry the fifty steers.

"It's surely wonderful!" they exclaimed. "Long live the Federalists!

Long live the Restorer!" The reader must be informed

that in those days the Federalists were everywhere, even amid

the offal of the Slaughter House, and that no festival took place

without the Restorer-just as there can be no sermon without

Saint Augustine. The rumor is that on hearing all the hubbub

the few remaining rats dying in their holes of starvation revived

and began to scamper about, carefree, confident, because of the

unusual joy and activity, that abundance had once more returned

to the place.

The first steer butchered was sent as a gift to the Restorer,

who was exceedingly fond of roasts. A committee of butchers

presented it to him in the name of the Federalists of the Slaughter

House and expressed to him, viva voce, their gratitude for the

government decree and their profound hatred for the savage Unitarians;

enemies of Gad and men. The Restorer replied to their

harangue by elaborating on the same theme, and the ceremony

ended with vivas and vociferations from both spectators and

protagonists. It is to be assumed that the Restorer had special

dispensation from His Most Reverend Father, excusing him from

fasting, for otherwise, being such, a punctilious observer of laws,

such a devout Catholic, and such a staunch defender of religion,

he would not have set such a bad example by accepting such a

gift on a holy day.

They slaughtering went on, and in a quarter of an hour forty-nine

steers lay in the court, some of them skinned, others still

be skinned. The Slaughter House offered a lively, picturesque

spectacle even though it did contain all that is horribly ugly,

filthy, and deformed in the small proletarian class peculiar to the

Plata River area. That the reader may grasp the setting at one

glance, it might not be amiss to describe it briefly.

The Convalescencia, or Alto Slaughter House, is located in

the southern part of Buenos Aires, on a huge lot, rectangular in

shape, at the intersection of two streets, one of which ends there

while the other continues eastward. The lot slants to the south

and is bisected by a ditch made by the rains, its shoulders pitted

with rat holes, its bed collecting all the blood from the Slaughter

House. At the junction of the right angle, facing the west, stands

what is commonly called the casilla, a low building containing

three small rooms with a porch in the front facing the street and

hitching posts for tying the horses. In the rear are several pens

of nandubay picket fence with heavy doors for guarding the steers.

In winter these pens become .veritable mires in which the

animals remain bogged down, immobile, up to the shoulder blades.

In the casilla the pen taxes and fines for violation of the rules are

collected, and in it sits the judge of the Slaughter House, an important

figure, the chieftain of the butchers, who exercises the

highest power, delegated to him by the Restorer, in that small re-

public. It is not difficult to imagine the kind of man required for

the discharge of such an office.

The casilla is so dilapidated and so tiny a building that no

one would notice it were it not that its name is inseparably linked

with that of the terrible judge and that its white front is pasted

over with posters: "Long live the Federalists! Long live the Restorer

and the Heroine Dona Encarnación Escurra! Death to the

savage Unitarians!" Telling posters, indeed, symbolizing the political

and religious faith of the Slaughter House folk! But some

readers may not know that the above mentioned Heroine is the

deceased wife of the Restorer, the beloved patroness of the butchers,

who even after her death is venerated by them as if she were

still alive, because of her Christian virtues and her Federalist

heroism during the revolution against Balcarce. The story is that

during an anniversary of that memorable deed of the mazorca,

the terrorist society of Rosas' henchmen, the butchers feted the

Heroine with a magnificent banquet in the casilla. She attended,

with her daughter and other Federalist ladies, and there, in the

presence of a great crowd, she offered the butchers, in a solemn

toast, her Federalist patronage, and for that reason they enthusiastically

proclaimed her patroness of the Slaughter House,

stamping her name upon the walls of the casilla, where it will

remain until blotted out by the hand of time.

From a distance the view of the Slaughter House was now

grotesque, full of animation. Forty-nine steers were stretched out

upon their skins and about two hundred people walked about

the muddy, blood-drenched floor. Hovering around each steer

stood a group of people of different skin colors. Most prominent

among them was the butcher, a knife in his hand, his arms bare,

his chest exposed, long hair dishevelled, shirt and sash and face

besmeared with blood. At his back, following his every movement,

romped a gang of children, Negro and mulatto women, offal

collectors whose ugliness matched that of the harpies, and huge

mastiffs which sniffed, snarled, and snapped at one another as

they darted after booty. Forty or more carts covered with awnings

of blackened hides were lined up along the court, and some

horsemen with their, capes thrown over their shoulders and their

lassos hanging from their saddles rode back and forth through

the crowds or lay on their horses' necks, casting indolent glances

upon this or that lively group. In mid-air a flock of blue white

gulls, attracted by the smell of blood, fluttered about, drowning

with strident cries all the other noises and voices of the Slaughter

House, and casting clear-cut shadows over that confused field

of horrible butchery. All this could be observed at the very be-

ginning of the slaughter.

But as the activities progressed, the picture kept changing.

While some groups dissolved as if some stray bullet had fallen

nearby or an enraged dog had charged them, new groups constantly

formed: here where a steer was being cut open, there

where a butcher was already hanging the quarters on the hook

in the carts, or yonder where a steer was, being skinned or the

fat taken off. From the mob eyeing and waiting for the offal

there issued ever and anon a filthy hand ready to slice off meat

or fat. Shouts and explosions of anger came from the butchers,

from the incessantly milling crowds, and from the gamboling

street urchins.

:"Watch the old woman hiding the fat under her breasts,"

someone shouted.

"That's nothing-see that fellow there plastering it all over

his behind," replied the old Negro woman.

"Hey there black witch, get out of there before I cut you

open" shouted a butcher.

"What am I doing to you, ño Juan? Don't be so mean! Can't

I have a bit of the guts?"

"Out with the witch! Out with the witch!" the children

squalled in unison. "She's taking away liver and kidneys!" And

with that, huge chunks of coagulated blood and balls of mud

rained upon her head.

Nearby two Negro women were dragging along the entrails

of an animal. A mulatto woman carrying a heap t;)f entrails

slipped in a pool of blood and fell lengthwise under her coveted

booty. Farther on, huddled together in a long line, four hundred

Negro women unwound heaps of intestines in their laps, picking

off one by one those bits of fat which the butcher's avaricious

knife had overlooked. Other women emptied stomachs and bladders

and after drying them used them for depositing the offal.

Several boys gamboling about, some on foot, other on horse-

back, banged one another with inflated bladders or threw chunks

of meat at one another, their noise frightening the cloud of gulls

which celebrated the slaughtering in flapping hordes. Despite the

Restorer's orders and the holiness of the day, filthy words were

heard all arounds, shouts full of all the bestial cynicism which

characterizes the populace attending our slaughter houses-but I

will not entertain the reader with all this dirt.

Suddenly a mass of bloody lungs would fall on somebody's

head. He forthwith would throw it on someone else's head until

some hideous mongrel picked it up as a pack of other mongrels

rushed in, raising a terrific growl for little or no reason at all, and

snapping at one another. Sometimes an old woman would run,

enraged, after some ragamuffin who had smeared her face with

blood. Summoned by his shouts his comrades would come to his

rescue, harassing her as dogs do a bull, and showering chunks

of meat and balls of dung upon her, accompanied by volleys of

laughter and shrieks, until the Judge would command order to

be restored.

In another spot two young boys practicing the handling of

their knives, slashed at one another with terrifying thrusts, while

farther on, four lads; much more mature than the former, were

fighting over some offal which they had filched from a butcher. Not

far from them some mongrels, lean from forced abstinence, struggled

for a piece of kidney all covered with mud. All a representation

in miniature of the savage ways in which individual and social

conflicts are thrashed out in our country.

Only one longhorn, of small, broad forehead and fiery stare,

remained in the corrals. No consensus of opinion about its genitals

had been possible: some believe it to be a bull, others a steer.

Now its hour approached. Two lasso men on horseback entered

The corral while the mob milled about its vicinity on foot or on

horseback, or dangled from the forked stakes of the enclosure. A

grotesque group formed at the corral's gate: a group of goaders

and lasso men on foot, with bare arms and provided with slipknots,

their heads covered with red kerchiefs, and wearing vests and red

sashes. Behind them several horsemen and spectators watched

with eager eyes.

With a slipknot already round its horns, the angrily foaming

animal bellowed fiercely; and there was no demon strong or cunning

enough to make it move from the sticky mud in which it was

glued. It was impossible to lasso it. The lads shouted themselves

hoarse from the forked stakes of the corral and the men tried in

vain to frighten it with blankets and kerchiefs. The din of hissing,

handclapping, and shrill and raucous voices which issued from

that weird orchestra was fearful.

The witty remarks, the obscene exclamations traveled from

mouth to mouth, and either excited by the spectacle or piqued

by a thrust from some garrulous tongue, everyone gratuitously

showed off his cleverness and caustic humor.

"So-they want to give us cat for rabbit!"

"I'm telling you, it's a steer-that's no bull!"

"Can't you see it's an old bull?"

"The hell it is-show me its balls and I'll believe you!"

"Can't you see them hanging from between its legs? Each

one bigger than the head of your roan horse. I guess you left

your eyes by the roadside!"

"It's your old woman who was blind to have given birth to

a chump like you! Can't you see that the mess between its legs is

just mud?"

"Bull or steer, it's as foxy as a Unitarian!"

On hearing this magic word "Unitarian," the mob exclaimed

in unison: "Death to the savage Unitarians!"

"Leave all sons of bitches to One-Eye!"

"You bet, One-Eye has guts enough to take care of all the

Unitarians put together!"

"Yes-Yes-leave the bull to Matasiete, the beheader of

Unitarians. Long live Matasiete!"

"The bull for Matasiete!"

"There it goes!" shouted someone raucously, interrupting the

interlude of the cowardly mob. "There goes the bull!"

"Get ready! Watch out, you fellows near the gate! There it

goes, mad as hell!"

And so it was. Maddened by the shouts and especially by

two sharp goads which pricked its tail, the beast, divining the

weakness of the slipknot, charged on the gate, snorting, casting

reddish, phosphorescent glances right and left. The lasso man

strained his line taut, till his horse squatted. Suddenly the knot

broke loose from the steer's horns and slashed across the air with

a sharp hum. In its wake there came instantly rolling down from

the stockade the head ot a child, cut clean from the trunk as if

by an ax. The trunk remained immobile, perched in the fork of a

pole, long streams of blood spurting from every artery.

"The rope broke and there goes the bull!" one of the men

shouted. Some of the spectators, overwhelmed and puzzled, were

quiet. It all happened like lightning.

The crowd by the gate trickled away. Some, clustered around

the head and palpitating trunk of the beheaded child, registered

horror in their astonished faces; others, mostly horsemen, who

had not witnessed the mishap, slipped away in different directions

in the tracks of the bull. All of them shouted at the top of their

voice: "There goes the bull! Stop it! Watch out! Lasso it, Siete pelos!

It's coming after you, Botija! He's mad, don't get too close!

Stop it, Morado, stop it! Get going with that hag of yours! Only

the devil will stop that bull!"

The hubbub and din was infernal. A few Negro women who

were seated along the ditch huddled together on hearing the

tumult and crouched amid the intestines which they were unraveling

with a patience worthy of Penelope. This saved them, because

the beast, with a terrifying bellow, leaped sideways over them

and rushed on, followed by the horsemen. It is said that one of

the women voided her self on the spot, that another prayed ten

Hail Mary's in a few seconds, and that two others promised San

Benito never to return to the damned corrals and to quit offal-

collecting forever and anon. However, it is not known whether

they kept their promises.

In the meantime the bull rushed toward the city by a long,

narrow street which, beginning at the acutest point of the rec-

tangle previously described, was surrounded by a ditch and a

cactus fence. It was one of the so-called "deserted" streets because

it had but two houses and its center was a deep marsh extending

from ditch to ditch. A certain Englishman, on his way

home from a salting establishment which he owned nearby, was

crossing this marsh at the moment on a somewhat nervous horse.

Of course he was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not

hear the onrush of horsemen or the shouts until the bull was

crossing the marsh. His horse took fright, leaped to one side, and

dashed away, leaving the poor devil sunk in half a yard of mire.

This accident did not curb the racing of the bull's pursuers; on

the contrary, bursting into sarcastic laughter-"The gringo's sunk.

Get up, gringo!"-they shouted and crossed the marsh, their horses'

hoofs trampling over his wretched body. The gringo dragged him-

self out as best he could, but more like a demon roasting in the

fires of hell than a blond-haired white man.

Farther on, at the shout of "the bull! the bull!" four Negro

women who were leaving with their booty of offal dived into a

ditch full of water, the only refuge left them.

The beast, in the meantime, having run several miles in one

direction and another, frightening all living beings, got in through

the back gate of a farm and there met his doom. Although weary,

it still showed its spirit and wrathful strength, but a deep ditch

and a thick cactus fence surrounded it and there was no escape.

The scattered pursuers got together and decided to take it back

convoyed between tamed animals, so that it could expiate its

crimes on the very spot where it had committed them.

An hour after its flight, the bull was back in the: Slaughter

House where the dwindling crowd spoke only of its misdeeds.

The episode of the gringo who got stuck in the mud moved them

to laughter and sarcastic remarks.

Of the child beheaded by the lasso there remained but a pool

of blood: his body had been taken away.

The men threw a slipknot over the horns of the beast which

leaped and reared, uttering hoarse bellows. They threw one, two,

three lassos-to no avail. The fourth, however, caught it by a

leg. Its vigor and fury redoubled. Its tongue, hanging out convulsively,

drooled froth, its nostrils fumed, its eyes emitted fiery

glances.

"Knock that animal down!" an imperious voice commanded.

Matasiete dismounted at once from his horse, hocked the bull with

one sure thrust, and, moving on nimbly with a huge dagger in

his hand, stuck it down to the hilt in the bull's neck and drew

it out, showing it smoking and red to the spectators. A torrent

gushed from the wound as the bull bellowed hoarsely. Then it

quivered and fell, amid cheers from the crowd, which proclaimed

Matasiete the hero of the day and assigned him the most succulent

steak as his prize. Proudly Matasiete stretched out his arm and

the bloodstained knife a second time, and then with his comrades

bent down to skin the dead bull.

,.The only question still undecided was whether the animal

was a steer or a bull. Although it had been provisionally classified

as bu11 because of its indomitable fierceness, they were all so fatigue

with the long drawn out performance that they had overlooked clearing up this point. But suddenly a butcher shouter:

"Here are the balls!" and sticking his hands into the animal's

genitals he showed the spectators two huge testicles.

There was much laughter and talk and all the aforementioned

unfortunate incidents of the day were readily explained. It

was strictly forbidden to bring bulls to the Slaughter House and

this was an exceptional occurrence. According to the rules and

regulations this bull should have been thrown to the dogs, but

with the scarcity of meat and so many hungry people in town the

Judge did not deem it advisable.

In a short while the bull was skinned, quartered, and hung

in the cart. Matasiete took a choice steak, placed it under the

pelisse of his saddle and began getting ready to go home. The

slaughtering had been completed by noon, and the small crowd

which had remained to the end was leaving, some on foot, others

on horseback, others pulling along the carts loaded with meat.

Suddenly the raucous voice of a butcher was heard announcing:

Here comes a Unitarian!" On hearing that word, the mob

stood still as if thunderstruck.

"Can't you see his U-shaped side whiskers? Can't you see he

carries no insignia on his coat and no mourning sash on his hat?"

"The Unitarian cur!"

"The son of a bitch!"

"He has the same kind of saddle as the gringo!"

"To the gibbet with him!"

"Give him the scissors!"

"Give him a good beating!"

"He has a pistol case attached to his saddle just to show off!"

"All these cocky Unitarians are as showy as the devil himself!"

"I bet you wouldn't dare touch him, Matasiete."

"He wouldn't, you say?"

"I bet you he would!"

Matasiete was a man of few words and quick action. When it

came to violence, dexterity, skill in the handling of an ox, a

knife, or a horse he did not talk much, but he acted. They had

piqued him; spurring his horse, he trotted away, bridle loose, to

meet the Unitarian.

The Unitarian was a young man, about twenty-five years old,

elegant, debonair of carriage, who, as the above-mentioned exclamations

were spouting from these impudent mouths, was trotting

towards Barracas, quite fearless of any danger ahead of him.

Noticing, however, the significant glances of that gang of Slaughter

House curs, his right hand reached automatically for the pistol-

case of his English saddle. Then a side push from Matasiete's

horse threw him from his saddle, stretching him out. Supine and

motionless he remained on the ground.

"Long live Matasiete!" shouted the mob, swarming upon the

victim.

Confounded, the young man cast furious glances on those ferocious

men and hoping to find in his pistol compensation and vindication,

moved towards his horse, which stood quietly nearby.

Matasiete rushed to stop him. He grabbed him by his tie, pulled

him down again on the ground, and whipping out his dagger from

his belt, put it against his throat.

Loud guffaws and stentorian vivas cheered him.

What nobility of soul! What bravery, that of the Federalists!

Always ganging together and falling like vultures upon the helpless

victim!

"Cut open his throat, Matasiete! Didn't he try to shoot you?

Rip him open, like you did the bull"

"What scoundrels these Unitarians! Thrash him good and

hard!"

"He has a good neck for the 'violin'-you know, the gibbet!"

"Better use the Slippery-One on him!"

"Let's try it," said Matasiete, and, smiling, began to pass the

sharp edge of his dagger around the throat of the fallen man as

he pressed in his chest with his left knee and held him by the

hair with his left hand.

"Don't behead him, don't!" shouted in the distance the Slaughter

House Judge as he approached on horseback.

"Bring him into the casilla. Get the gibbet and the scissors

ready. Death to the savage Unitarians! Long live the Restorer of

the laws!"

"Long live Matasiete!"

The spectators repeated in unison "Long live Matasiete! Death

to the Unitarians!" They tied his elbows together as blows rained

upon his nose, and they shoved him around. Amid shouts and

insults they finally dragged the unfortunate young man to the

bench of tortures just as if they had been the executioners of the

Lord themselves.

The main room of the casilla had in its center a big, hefty

table, which was devoid of liquor glasses and playing cards only

in times of executions and tortures administrated by the Federalist

executioners of the Slaughter House. In a crner stood a smaller

table with writing materials and a notebook and some chairs, one

of which, an armchair, was reserved for the Judge. A man who

looked like a soldier was seated in one of them, playing on his

guitar the “Resbalosa,” an immensely popular song among the

Federalists, when the mob rushing tumultuously into the corrider

of the casilla brutally showed in the young Unitarian.

"The Slippery-One for him!" shouted one of the fellows.

"Commend your soul to the devil!"

"He's furious as a wild bull!"

"The whip will tame him."

"Give him a good pummeling!"

"First the cowhide and scissors."

"Otherwise to the bonfire with him!"

"The gibbet would be even better for him!"

"Shut up and sit down," shouted the Judge as he sank into

his armchair. All of them obeyed, while the young man standing

in front of the Judge exclaimed with a voice pregnant with indignation:

"Infamous executioners, what do you want to do with me?"

"Quiet!" ordered the Judge, smiling. "There's no reason for

getting angry. You'll see."

The young man was beside himself. His entire body shook

with rage: his mottled face, his voice, his tremulous lips, evinced

the throbbing of his heart and the agitation of his nerves. His

fiery eyes bulged in their sockets, his long black hair bristled. His

bare neck and the front of his shirt showed his bulging arteries

and his anxious breathing.

"Are you trembling?" asked the Judge.

"Trembling with anger because I cannot choke you."

. "Have you that much strength and courage?"

"I have will and pluck enough for that. scoundrel."

"Get out the scissors I use to cut my horse's mane and clip

his hair in the Federalist style."

Two men got hold of him. One took his arms and another

his head and in a minute clipped off his side whiskers. The spectators

laughed merrily.

"Get him a glass of water to cool him off," ordered the Judge.

"I'll have you drink gall, you wretch!"

A Negro appeared with a glass of water in his hand. The

young man kicked his arm and the glass smashed to bits on the

ceiling the fragments sprinkling the astonished faces of the spectators.

"'This fellow is incorrigible!"

"Don't worry, we'll tame him, yet!"

"Quiet!" said the Judge. "Now you are shaven in the Federalist

style-all you need is a mustache, don't forget to grow one!"

"Now, let's see: why don't you wear any insignia?"

"Because I don't care to."

"Don't you know that the Restorer orders it?"

"Insignia become you, slaves, but not free men!"

"Free men will have to wear them, by force."

"Indeed, by force and brutal violence. These are your arms,

infamous wretches! Wolves, tigers, and panthers are also strong

like you and like them you should walk on all fours."

"Are you not afraid of being torn to pieces by the tiger?"

"I prefer that to having you pluck out my entrails, as the

ravens do, one by one."

"Why don't you wear a mourning sash on your hat in memory

of the Heroine?"

"Because I wear it in my heart in memory of my country

which you, infamous wretches, have murdered."

"Don't you know that the Restorer has ordered mourning in

memory of the Heroine?"

"You, slaves, were the ones to order it so as to flatter your

master and pay infamous homage to him."

"Insolent fellow! You are beside yourself. I'll have your tongue

cut off if you utter one more word. Take the pants off this arrogant

fool, and beat him on his naked ass. Tie him down on the

table first!"

Hardly had the Judge uttered his commands when four

bruisers bespattered with blood lifted the young man and stretched

him out upon the table.

"Rather behead me than undress me, infamous rabble!"

They muzzled him with a handkerchief and began to pull off

his clothes. The young man wriggled, kicked, and gnashed his

teeth. His muscles assumed now the flexibility of rushes, now the

hardness of iron, and he squirmed like a snake in his enemy's

grasp. Drops of sweat, large as pearls, streamed down his cheeks,

his pupils flamed, his mouth foamed, and the veins on his neck

and forehead jutted out black from his pale skin as if congested

with blood.

"Tie him up," ordered the Judge.

"He's roaring with anger," said one of the cutthroats.

In a short while they had tied his feet to the legs of the

table and turned his body upside down. In trying to tie his hands,

the men had to unfasten them from behind his back. Feeling free,

the young man, with a brusque movement which seemed to drain

him of all his strength and vitality, raised himself up, first upon

his arms, then upon his knees, and collapsed immediately, murmuring:

"Rather behead me than undress me, infamous rabble!"

His strength was exhausted, and having tied him down cross-

wise, they began undressing him. Then a torrent of blood spouted,

bubbling from the young man's mouth and nose, and flowed freely

down the table. The cutthroats remained immobile and the spectators,

astonished.

"The savage Unitarian has burst with rage," said one of them.

"He had a river of blood in his veins," put in another.

"Poor devil, we wanted only to amuse ourselves with him,

but he took things too seriously," exclaimed the Judge, scowling

tiger-like,

"We must draw up a report. Untie him and let's go!"

They carried out the orders, locked the doors, and in a short

while the rabble went out after the horse of the downcast, taciturn

Judge,

The Federalists had brought to an end one of their innumerable

feats of valor.

Those were the days when the butchers of the Slaughter

House were apostles who propagated by dint of whip and poi nard

Rosas" Federation, and it is not difficult to imagine what sort of

Federation issued from their heads and knives. They were wont

to dub as savage Unitarians (in accordance with the jargon invented

by the Restorer, patron of the brotherhood) any man who

was neither a cutthroat nor a crook; any man who was kindhearted

and decent; any patriot or noble friend of enlightenment

and freedom; and from the foregoing episode it can be clearly seen

that the headquarters of the Federation were located in the

Slaughter House.