The caravan drove away, leaving the sick cameleer abandoned at the foot of the well.
There the caravans stop always, for the fame of the water, of which a thousand councils refer. According to some, by liking it, energy is restored; according to others, there is something terrible in it, something sinister.
The devotees of Ali, son-in-law and continuator of the religious and political work of Mohamed, profess special respect for this well; they say that in it the generous and hapless prince quenched his thirst, on the day of his decisive victory against the hosts of his sworn enemy Aixa or Aja, widow of the Prophet. As the faithful believers do not ignore, in this battle she fell from the camel that the prophetess rode, and she was respected and forgiven by Ali, who ordered her to drive to Mecca again. They claim that from such a historical episode the discussion about the water qualities of the Well of Life proceeds. It is famous that Aixa la illustrious, one of the four incomparable women who have existed in the world, when she brought the water to her lips when they took her captive and defeated, she assured that she had an unbearable flavor.
The cameleer did not think then of the taste of water. He watched the dust cloud of the caravan fade away, and he looked like a castaway in the desert sand sea.
True, the well was located in what is called an oasis; ten or twelve palm trees, a small construction of plaster and brick destined to drink the camels and a mean and temporary shelter for the pilgrims who were going to the distant mosque; to this the solitary oasis was reduced. Devoured by the fever, which dried the blood in his veins, the camel-driver, frugal and always sober, now barely approached the food, the provisions of flour and dates. His support was water from the well.
-Not in vain is called the Well of Life ... Drinking will heal.
Two or three days passed. The abandoned one did not cease to immerse the bowl in the wineskin that on leaving, with pious foresight, had left his caravan companions full. And he thought to himself: "My evil upsets my senses. This water, at once so tasty, now seems to have had a coloquíntid infusion. »
On the third day, some girls from the tribe of the Beni-Said, camped at a short distance on the side of an arid valley, came to prime their skins in the well. The patient asked them to renew the provision, because their forces did not consent. A virgin about fifteen years old, with the slenderness of a gazelle, tied the rope with her brown arms and the bucket rose overflowing with a clear and cold liquid like crystal. The sick man stretched out his hands anxiously and even smiled with joy when the girl, in her bowl of enameled clay in bright colors, presented him with the proof of that delight. But, he barely moistened his tongue, made a pout of disgust.
It is even more bitter than that of the wineskin! he murmured in dismay.
The girl poured water into the bowl again and drank slowly, with relish.
-What do you say about bitterness? he questioned mockingly. It is cooler than the flakes of snow and sweeter than the milk of our sheep. It has cooled and exalted my heart. I have never found water so tasty. Prove you, to see who is deceived.
And the group of young water-carriers, before loading the rope skins, along the side of their asnillos, the heaped wineskins, drank long gulps of water from the well. They laughed without cause, disputing the bowls where the water spilled wetting the tunics listed red and white, the throats olive and smooth as green dates, small breasts and arms polished and morbid. The black oval eyes of the virgins gleamed; his hail teeth were whiter through the pale lips fanned by the water. They rode later in the juices, adjusting themselves to fit between the wineskins, and with crazy laughter they took the turn of their aduar.
The cameleer was alone again. As he had watched the little cloud of the caravan fade, he saw himself lost, in the unlimited expanse, not of the road (the desert is all of it), but of the plain, the dust that raised the trot of the donkeys, urged on by the girls . The fever consumed him. Desperate, he drank. The water was bitter even more.
The days paraded. The patient counted them by the beads of the rosary of fat beads that, as a devout Muslim believer, he had hung around his waist. Because they were the same every day. The same dazzling sunrises in a steely sky; the same blinding midday, crudely magnificent, with mounds of coal and rays of sun without veil, refracted by the yellowish plain; the same lighted afternoons, caliginous, exhaling scorching breaths of terral, broken by roars and distant howls of beasts; the same nights of implacable splendor, in which the dark and pure firmament was adorned with its most effulgent stars and constellations, without even a gust of air descending from the bronze vault, paved with blue, occelated with vivid, lucid and harsh stars like the haughty look of the powerful.
And the sick man, without being able to avoid it, drank, drank ... And the water was at every turn more disgusting. It could be said that the hands of the enemy geniuses of man were throwing away bags of gall in the well, handfuls of salt, essence of pain. There came a moment when the camel driver's strength ran out; in which the sight of the water alone gave him chills, and at the foot of the well he stretched out on the withered floor determined to let himself perish, resigned and anxious about the end.
A voice that called him-an imperious and grave voice-made him open his eyes. He had before him a santón, an old marabout with a long Argentine beard, with a patched suit, leaning on a cayada, with his mendicant bag on his shoulder. The face, burned by the sun, presented noble, aquiline features, and eyes fixed on the patient, revealed no mercy, but serene meditation; the state of a soul that knows the Sacred Books and probes existence. In the right hand, the santón held the bowl full of water; Maybe he was going to hurry up.
"Do not drink, holy man," the cameleher advised. It is bitter as absinthe. It will give you horror. I can not stand it anymore.
Without paying attention, the saint drank, and neither showed displeasure nor complacency.
"This water," he murmured after he had wiped his mouth with the back of his hand weathered by the weather, "is neither bitter nor sweet; its bitterness and its sweetness are in the palate of those who drink it. Have you not come here, since you languish at the foot of the well, young and healthy beings? Have not they drunk from the water?
"They have come," replied the cameleer, "virgin maidens, very disturbed, to drink water for their aduar. And they have praised the refrigerant of the drink.
"You see," the santon said quietly. May the angel Azrael look for you and allow you to find tolerable at least the water of the well. I would take you with me, taking you out of this bad step; but my donkey can not with more load and I have to advance the way to join a caravan, because if I go alone I will devour the beasts.
And the holy man walked away reciting a verse from the Koran. Seeing his dark silhouette vanish in the inflamed horizon, the cameleer felt his last hope disappear, and in delirious transport, he approached the well's rim, grabbed him with both hands and, not without painstaking effort - even to give himself the death takes vigor! -, rushed inside, head.
........................ ..
And the waters of the Well of Life, since the cameleer was thrown into its depth, are still sweet for some, bitter for many ... It should be added that those with fine palate find taste for the dead.
SOURCE: https://ciudadseva.com/texto/cuentos-tragicos/