Free Complete Short Stories by Robert Graves Page A

off – and wonderfully tasting apricots they are. Like orange-blossom honey. I sold a great quantity and bottled the remainder.’
    ‘I am delighted… Have you perhaps visited Don Pablo since your return? You must know that he no longer lives in these parts but has taken a house in Palma?’
    ‘Between ourselves, I have no intention of callingupon him. When I quitted the island at an hour’s notice with only a suitcase and a wallet, I left a certain small affair for him to settle on my behalf. He neglected it, and his neglect has cost me a thousand pesetas or more. But I do not intend to recall the matter to his memory; it is already ancient history. And, finding my house in perfect condition, with everything in its place, I have reasonto be grateful that his conduct is not characteristic of Majorcans in general.’
    ‘No, indeed! His is a very special case. You know perhaps of my former disagreements with him?’
    ‘You disputed about some irrigation rights.’
    ‘We did indeed.’
    ‘May I ask whether you are still on bad terms with him? In our village I find that the effect of the Troubles has been to end all personal and family feudsand unite the people as never before.’
    ‘Está en su casa!,
as we say here. He is in his own house; I am in mine.’
    ‘I am sorry. I should be interested to hear the story if it doesn’t inconvenience you to tell it.’
    ‘It is a long one. But, Don Roberto – may I first ask a favour of you?’
    ‘Anything that lies in my power.’
    ‘I wish to seat myself on the bench of the
mirador
where you have been. Ihave been trying to reach it all morning since ten o’clock. Will you help me?’
    ‘But, man, are you lame?’
    ‘Not in my legs. In my belly.’
    ‘You mean that you are scared? Then why go? The view is as good from that rock over there as from the
mirador
itself.’
    ‘My doctor orders it – Doctor Guasp of Sóller, a specialist. He knows a great deal about psychology, having studied in Vienna as well asin Madrid. Once I have gone there, he says, and remained calmly for a while on the bench, making my peace with a certain important Saint, my nerves will recover and I shall once more sleep all night. He even offered to come with me, but I was ashamed to put him to the trouble. I said: “No, I will go alone. I am no coward.” But now I find that I cannot walk the last few steps.’
    He began to stutterand a light sweat broke from his forehead. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘the heat is excessive. You will perhaps take me there in a little while when we have smoked a cigarette or two in the shade of this rock? Meanwhile I will tell you about the irrigation dispute. Have you tobacco?’
    ‘I stupidly left my pouch at home.’
    ‘No matter. Here is good tobacco, and cigarette paper.’
    ‘Contraband?’
    ‘Did Inot say it was good tobacco? You cannot buy this sort at any
estanco.
Allow me, you seem to have lost the habit of rolling cigarettes. In England you smoke only Luckies and Camels?’
    He began his story between puffs. ‘Well, if you know anything of the matter, you will know that I had been for fifteen years the tenant farmer of the estate called Ca’n Sampol, which Don Pablo Pons acquired by hismarriage with Doña Binilde.’
    I nodded.
    ‘He dispossessed me, though I had an agreement with Doña Binilde’s late husband that I was secure in my life-tenancy. Don Cristóbal Fuster y Fernández was a
caballero,
a man of the strictest honour. When he inherited the estate from his brother who was killed in the Rif War, he told me in the presence of his wife: “There will be no changes here. You maycultivate Ca’n Sampol for the rest of your life, friend Pedro. You have transformed the place since you took it over, and I am happy to leave it in your hands.” In the island, as you know, a verbal agreement is sufficient between neighbours, and if there is a witness present it becomes binding in law. To ask to have it put in writing is bad manners. We pride