El árbol de la ciencia de Pío Baroja
Quinta Parte Capítulo 5
Alcolea del Campo
Las costumbres de Alcolea eran españolas puras; es decir, de un absurdo completo.
El pueblo no tenía el menor sentido social; las familias se metían en sus casas, como los trogloditas en su cueva. No había solidaridad; nadie sabía ni podía utilizar la fuerza de la asociación. Los hombres iban al trabajo y a veces al casino. Las mujeres no salían más que los domingos a misa.
Por falta de instinto colectivo el pueblo se había arruinado.
En la época del tratado de los vinos con Francia, todo el mundo, sin consultarse los unos a los otros comenzó a cambiar el cultivo de sus campos, dejando el trigo y los cereales y poniendo viñedos, pronto el río de vino de Alcolea se convirtió en río de oro. En este momento de prosperidad, el pueblo se agrandó, se instaló la luz eléctrica...; luego vino la terminación del tratado, y como nadie sentía la responsabilidad de representar el pueblo, a nadie se le ocurrió decir: Cambiemos el cultivo; volvamos a nuestra vida antigua; empleemos la riqueza producida por el vino en transformar la tierra para las necesidades de hoy. Nada.
El pueblo aceptó la ruina con resignación.
Antes éramos ricos
se dijo cada alcoleano. Ahora
seremos pobres. Es igual; viviremos peor, suprimiremos nuestras
necesidades.
Aquel estoicismo acabó de hundir al pueblo.
Era natural que así fuese; cada ciudadano de Alcolea se sentía tan separado del vecino como de un extranjero. No tenían una cultura común (no la tenían de ninguna clase); no participaban de admiraciones comunes: sólo el hábito, la rutina, les unía; en el fondo, todos eran extraños a todos.
Muchas veces a Hurtado le parecía Alcolea una ciudad en estado de sitio. El sitiador era la moral. La moral católica . Allí no había nada que no estuviera almacenado y recogido: las mujeres, en sus casas; el dinero, en las carpetas; el vino, en las tinajas.
Andrés se preguntaba: ¿Qué hacen estas mujeres? ¿En qué piensan? ¿Cómo pasan las horas de sus días? Difícil era averiguarlo.
Con aquel régimen de guardarlo todo, Alcolea gozaba de un orden admirable, sólo un cementerio bien cuidado podía sobrepasar tal perfección.
Esta perfección se conseguía haciendo que el más inepto fuera el que gobernara. La ley de selección en pueblos como aquél se cumplía al revés. El cedazo iba separando el grano de la paja, luego se recogía la paja y se desperdiciaba el grano.
Algún burlón hubiera dicho que este aprovechamiento de la paja entre españoles no era raro. Por aquella selección a la inversa, resultaba que los más aptos allí eran precisamente los más ineptos.
En Alcolea había pocos robos y delitos de sangre: en cierta época los habia habido entre jugadores y matones; la gente pobre no se movía, vivía en una pasividad lánguida; en cambio, los ricos se agitaban, y la usura iba sorbiendo toda la vida de la ciudad.
El labrador, de humilde pasar, que durante mucho tiempo tenía una casa con cuatro o cinco parejas de mulas, de pronto aparecia con diez, luego con veinte;
Part 5 Chapter 5
Alcolea del Campo
The ways of Alcolea were purely Spanish, that is to say, utterly absurd.
There was no idea of social life. The families lived in their houses like troglodytes. The idea of union and of the strength of association was completely unknown. The men went out to work, and, sometimes, to the casino; the women only went out on Sundays, to mass.
The town had been ruined by this lack of collective instinct.
At the time of the wine treaty with France everyone, without
consulting with his neighbour, converted his land from wheat and
cereals into vineyards; and soon Alcolea's river of wine became a
river of gold. In this moment of prosperity the town grew in size,
the streets were cleaned and given side-walks; electric light was
installed. Then the treaty terminated, and as no one spoke for the
town as a whole, no one said: Let us change back again, using
the wealth produced by the wine to turn the earth to the needs of
today.
The town accepted ruin resignedly.
Formerly we were rich,
every inhabitant would remark.
Now we shall be poor. It comes to the same; we shall have less
to live on, we must limit our wants.
And this stoicism
completed the town's ruin.
It was natural that it should be so. To every inhabitant of the town his neighbour was as remote as a foreigner; they had no culture in common they had no culture at all; they had no common enthusiasms. Custom and routine alone united them and all were essentially strangers to one another.
Hurtado often thought of Alcolea as a besieged city. Catholic morality was the besieger. There everything was stored and separated, the women in their houses, the money in the money-bags, the wine in the great jars.
Andres used to ask himself: What do these women do? What do
they think about? How do they pass the weary hours?
It was not
easy to find out.
With this system of keeping everything close, the order in Alcolea was admirable: only a well-kept cemetery could have surpassed it.
This perfection was secured by an inverted selection of those who held office. The grain was winnowed frorn the chaff: the chaff was kept, and the grain wasted.
A cynic might possibly have observed that this choice of the chaff was no rare thing in Spain. By such inverted choice the most unfitted were the fittest.
At Alcolea there were few thefts or crimes of violence, although at one time they had been frequent among gamblcrs and roughs; the poor people remained quiet, languidly passive; the rich were active enough, and usury devoured the life of the city.
The small farmer who had long had but four or five pairs of mules suddenly had ten, had twenty; his land grew in proportion; he became one of the rich.
Politics at Alcolea were admirably adapted to the indolence and mistrust of the people. It was a feud between two parties of caciques or local bosses, known as the Rats and the Owls; the Rats were Liberals, the Owls were Conservatives.
At that time the Owls were in the ascendant. The chiefs of the Owls was mayor, a thin man of pronounced clerical opinions, dressed in black, a suave-mannered political leader who was quietly taking possession of all he could lay hands on. The Liberal cacique who led the party of the Rats was a barbarous, despotic man of great size and strength, with the hands of a giant, who when his turn came, treated the town like a conquered province. He was not a hypocrite like the leader of the Owls; he simply swept the board without being at pains to cast a decorous veil over his thefts.