The square fills up. The people from Monte Lavre are standing in a group. Gracinda, the only woman, her husband Manuel Espada, her brother and father, António and João Mau-Tempo, and Sigismundo Canastro, who says, Stick together, and there are two other men called José, one is the great-grandson of the Picanços, who kept the mill at Ponte Cava, and the other is José Medronho, whom we haven’t had occasion to mention until now. They are in a sea of people, the sun beats down on this sea and burns like a nettle poultice, while up in the castle, the ladies open their sunshades, anyone would think it was a party. Those rifles are loaded, you can tell by the look on the guards’ faces, a man carrying a loaded weapon immediately takes on a different air, he grows hard and cold, his lips tighten, and he looks at us with real rancor. People who like horses sometimes give them the name of a person, like that colt called Bom-Tempo, but I don’t know if the horses at the end of the street have names, perhaps they simply give them numbers, they do everything by numbers in the guards, call out number twenty-seven, and the horse and the man riding it both step forward, how confusing.
The shouting has begun, We want work, we want work, we want work, that’s about all they say, apart from the occasional insult, you thieves, but spoken so quietly that it’s as if the person hurling the insult were ashamed, then someone else shouts, Free elections, what’s the point of saying that now, but the great clamor of voices rises up and drowns out everything else, We want work, we want work, what kind of world is it that divides into those who make a profession of idleness and those who want work but can’t get it. Someone gave the signal, or perhaps it was agreed that the meeting could go on for a certain number of minutes, or perhaps Leandro Leandres or Lieutenant Contente made a telephone call, or maybe the mayor peered out of the window, There they are, the dogs, but whatever the sequence of events, the mounted guards unsheathed their sabers, oh good heavens, such courage, such heroism, it sends a shiver down the spine, I had quite forgotten about the sun until it glinted on those polished blades, a positively divine light, enough to make a man tremble with patriotic fervor, well, doesn’t it you.
The horses break into a trot, there’s not enough space for anything bolder, and those who try to escape from beneath the hooves and the saber thrusts immediately fall to the ground. A man could perhaps stand such humiliation, but sometimes he chooses not to, or is suddenly blinded with rage, and then the sea rises, arms are raised, hands grab reins or throw stones picked up from the ground or brought with them in their bags, it’s the right of those who have no other weapons, and the stones come flying from the back of the crowd, probably without hurting anyone, horse or rider, because a stone hurled at random like that, if it was, simply drops to the ground. It was a battle scene worthy of a painting on the wall of the commander’s office or in the officers’ mess, the horses rearing up, the imperial guard, sabers unsheathed, striking with either the flat of the sword or the edge, the rebellious workers retreating then advancing like the tide, the wretches. This was the charge of June twenty-third, fix that date in your memory, children, although other dates also adorn the history of the latifundio and are deemed glorious for the same or similar reasons. The infantry also excelled itself, especially Sergeant Armamento, a man with a blind faith and a wrong-headed view of the law, there’s the first burst of machine-gun fire, and another, both of them fired into the air as a warning, and when the people in the castle hear these shots, they cheer and clap, the sweet girls of the latifundio, faces scarlet with heat and bloodthirsty thoughts, and their mothers and fathers, and the boyfriends trembling with the desire to get out there themselves, lance in hand, and finish the job just started, Kill them all. The third burst of fire is aimed low, all that target shooting is proving its worth, let the smoke clear, not bad, although it could have been better, there are three men lying on the ground, one of whom is getting up, clutching his arm, he was lucky, another is dragging himself painfully along, one leg incapacitated, and that one over there isn’t moving at all, It’s José Adelino dos Santos, it’s José Adelino, says someone from Montemor, who knows him. José Adelino dos Santos is dead, he got a bullet in the brain and couldn’t believe it at first, but shook his head as if he had been bitten by an insect, then he understood, Those bastards have killed me, and he fell helplessly backward, with no wife there to help him, his own blood formed a cushion under his head, a red cushion, if you please. The people in the castle applaud again, they sense that this time it’s serious, and the cavalry charges, scattering
