Isidro, the third of the children of José Defaus Ballesté and Teresa Moragas Gibert, was a skinny and gangly boy. However, at the age of fifteen, he became an attractive young man of medium height, with a small mouth, a sharp nose, and lively coffee-brown eyes. Isidro was born in 1862, when Mariano was six years old, María was almost five, and Juan was a twenty-month-old baby. Mariano and María were redheads, with light skin and blue eyes, while Isidro and Juan were born with a mop of dark hair and jet-black eyes. The two brothers looked like twins and always went everywhere together. Their grandfather, Mariano Defaus Segarra, called them the twins.
José and Teresa continued to have children, and Isidro was the youngest and most pampered child of the family for only two years. Teresa did not stop breastfeeding the children to avoid becoming pregnant, but this natural method did not work for her because every twenty months she discovered that she was expecting another child. She spent many years without menstruating, and she realized she was pregnant when she was already four or five months pregnant. She was a healthy and strong woman; her births, according to Ángela Fontrodona, one of the town's midwives, were easy and quick because she was a brave woman with wide hips. In 1864, Francisco was born, in 1868 Luisa, and the last was Rosa who was born in 1870. All of them were blonde or redhead, but María was the most freckled of the siblings.
Isidro suffered the condition of a middle son, crushed by the strong personalities of his male brothers, the rather reflective one of Mariano and the intuitive one of Francisco. Maybe that's why he became so attached to Juan - they were both rather instinctive and sensitive. Juan looked younger than Isidro, being short with a child's face.
When his father praised his brothers, Isidro envied them; but the person he was most jealous of was Mariano. The day his father took Mariano to Barcelona by train for the first time, the children were left playing in the street. Juan didn't seem to care, but on the other hand, Isidro was angry for several days. He would have liked to go with them. Francisco, the youngest, didn't say anything either.
When he finished primary school, his father, advised by the parish priest, sent Isidro to a seminary in Girona. José Defaus had planned to assign Mariano the grain and seeds business, Juan would work the land, and Isidro was going to be a priest. But the boy did not want to know anything about the church. At that time, Jose still had no plans for Francisco.
Isidro had a hard time at the seminary at first, but then he took action and looked for a way out of the seminary nightmare. He wrote long letters to his mother begging her to come for him. He also wrote to his older brothers, asking them to intercede with his father to get him out of that prison. His comedy skills were of no use to him in the seminary because he was punished every now and then, and after two years he was kicked out.
On a rainy day, José Defaus Ballesté went to the Girona seminary to pick up his expelled son and to accompany Francisco who, despite being a good student, was not sure he wanted to be a priest. Upon his return, Jose made Isidro sit next to him in the tartan and instead of scolding him, he told him that he had found a job for him:
“Isidro, you are going to learn to make wine barrels (cuberos) and sell them.” At the age of thirteen, José put him to work from dawn to dusk, so that he could learn the trade. The wine barrel makers and coopers had been working for some years on De Boters Street. This street opened to the main connection towards the railway station, which was being built in front of the beach, located a few hundred meters from the sea. The scions of the Paradeda family, which owned most of the land, were the first in the town to begin to practice the trade of barrel making. Over the years, more wooden barrel shops opened on the street as demand increased - not only to contain wine, but also for other foods, such as salted fish. The barrel craftsmen of Malgrat became the best in the region. The street was packed with shoppers, especially during market days. With the arrival of the train in 1859, the town council changed the name of the street in honor of a son of Malgrat, Mariano Cubí, a pedagogue and popularizer of phrenology. However, for more than a century, the entire town continued to call the street “De Boters Street.”
When Isidro started the profession, some houses had already been built on the street. In one of them lived Francisca Moragas Gibert, his mother's sister, wife of Narciso Coll who was a fisherman. The aunt had no children and welcomed him lovingly into her home, where he stayed to eat and sometimes sleep.
Several widows lived on that street. One of them, Agustina, was beautiful and confident. Despite being young, she already had five children. She came from outside, since Sebastián, her husband, had worked as a ticket clerk at the new railway station. Every two or three years the man was given a new assignment and the whole family moved with him. Agustina was used to loading her few things into a cart and changing towns. Malgrat is where Sebastián worked the longest. On De Boters Street, Sebastian rented a much larger home than the one offered by the railway company in the station building and told Agustina, “I'm going to ask to be left in this town. It's quiet and people don't mess with us, and the notary has told me that he's going to hire me for a few hours a day in his office. With two salaries, we will live like kings.”
“Whatever you say,” Agustina answered.
Sebastián did not have time to get used to the running he had to do, leaving one job and entering another, as he suddenly died behind the station window at the age of fifty. Agustina was widowed at thirty.
On De Boters Street, full of activity and prosperity, it was customary for widows to earn some money by feeding the barrel apprentices. Agustina earned a small amount from the railroad company where her husband had worked, but it was not enough for her to take care of her family. She had to look for another job to support her five children and began preparing meals for the barrel makers.
When Isidro’s aunt, Francisca Moragas, fell ill, Agustina took care of her nephew. At fifteen, Isidro looked like a young man of eighteen and fell madly in love with Agustina. Teresa Moragas Gibert learned from her sister that Isidro had an understanding with Agustina, but instead of causing a scandal, she told her husband, “We need to keep Isidro away from De Boters Street. I'm afraid it will derail him.”
“I don't want to know what trouble he's gotten into, I'm going to take care of Isidro. Don't interfere with what I'm going to do,” José told her, upset.
He was not yet sixteen years old when Isidro was hired by a sailing company that did cabotage in the south of France. Isidro resented his parents; and when he returned to Malgrat, he went to see them, but he never stayed the night at their house with the excuse that he had to guard the pier. His parents suspected that he was going to Agustina's house. He was crazy about the widow, who was a good woman. However, she was a woman of bad reputation in the community.
Agustina did not want problems, and when José Defaus Ballesté came to offer her money to leave his son, she accepted it. Isidro was upset when he was rejected by Agustina, but soon in Marseille he consoled himself with another woman. The following year he had another disappointment when Juan was drafted for military service. He was sorry for his brother, because he was afraid that he would be killed in the war. At the age of nineteen, Isidro received his draft card and had to return to Spain. During the four years that his military service lasted he did not go to the front. Fortunately, the first war in Cuba, which lasted ten years, had ended and the Carlist wars were coming to an end. On the other hand, Juan had to go to war, from which he returned crippled and sickly. Isidro knew Juan very well and knew what he was going through. After Juan recovered, Isidro learned that Juan had fallen into a state of depression and wrote him long letters to encourage him and so that he would not spoil his courtship with Teresita.
In December 1882, Isidro was given permission to go to Juan and Teresita's wedding. For a few months, Juan seemed cured of his depression and lung disease, which had left him confined to a military hospital bed for several weeks, coughing day and night. However, very soon Juan fell ill again. In September of the following year, Isidro returned to the town with special permission for his brother's funeral. Isidro was saddened by the loss of the only family member who he claimed had loved him.
When he finished his military service, he rented a house on De Boters Street. His intention was to win back Agustina. José Defaus learned from his sister-in-law that his son was running after the widow again.
“Get out of this town,” José told Agustina, handing her some silver coins.
“I love your son and I don't like to make him suffer, but these coins are very useful for me. I'm going to go to Mataró, where I have an aunt.”
Agustina and her children loaded their things into a cart and disappeared from Malgrat forever. Isidro became desperate. He went to look for her in the nearby towns and did not find her. At that time his sister Marieta, seeing him so weak, took him into her home. There he met María Teresa, a young girl who was going to piano lessons. Every afternoon María Antonia taught her music theory and invited her to have a snack. Isidro tried to forget Agustina and a year later he married Maria Teresa, who was the daughter of a cloth and fabric merchant. The wedding took place at sunset in the town church. The ceremony was attended by Marieta, María Engracia and María Antonia, the three widows, and the bride's parents and siblings. Maria Teresa would have wanted her family to meet her future in-laws, but Isidro refused.
The couple had two children; however, Isidro did not want his parents to see them. He lived in the town, but he rarely went home, only when he was called to resolve something important, and he never went with his wife and children. Isidro told Marieta that he wanted to open a barrel shop in Saint Susanna, a small town very close to Malgrat, where there was a large production of wine. However, Isidro was never able to open a barrel shop due to lack of money. A few days after the death of José Defaus Ballesté, Isidro asked Marieta to accompany him to see his mother; he did not dare to go alone. Marieta was the only one who had not let him down, the one who brought him news of his family, and the one who did not judge him. When they entered his childhood house, Isidro's legs trembled. So many memories came back to his mind! Before entering the kitchen, Marieta looked at the wooden virgin who was in the niche of the gallery and inwardly asked her not to let Isidro lose his temper.
Teresa was sitting on a straw chair.
“Come closer son, my eyesight is not very good and I want to take a good look at you!”
“Mother, I apologize for not having gone to my father's funeral. I couldn't,” Isidro told her.
“Don't beat yourself up, you're here now and that's the most important thing.”
“Mother, now we are all close to you,” Marieta said to her.
“Isidro, I'm glad you came to see me, I've missed you . . . I can't complain, now that I have you both in my house. The only thing that saddens me is not being able to see Mariano before I die,” Teresa said.
“Why is he always talked about in this house? He is not God!” Isidro said with a squeaky voice as if he wanted to be ironic.
“Isidro, don't exaggerate; and Mother, don't say that. Maybe Mariano will manage to come back and besides, you are not alone, you have us and Francisco,” Marieta said softly, sensing that a storm was approaching.
Isidro, upon hearing Francisco's name, began to feel intense heat in his face and ears. He tried to control himself but could not control his anger. He turned even redder and said, almost shouting, “Mother, Mariano is not going to return. Therefore, it is my turn to be the universal heir and not Francisco as our father has ordered. During all these years I have felt wrongly deprived.”
“Isidro, you have to forgive us, maybe we were wrong for making you embark so young, we did it in good faith, because we wanted a better life for you,” Teresa answered.
“A better life does not mean taking a child away from the family.”
“Your father decided that you had to go away.”
“You can't imagine how much I hated you.”
“Isidro, don't say that. Our father did it for your good,” Marieta replied.
“Please don't be resentful,” Teresa told him softly.
“Why have you kicked me out of the family?”
“Nobody has kicked you out. Plus, I did what I could to increase your inheritance. You shouldn't complain.”
“Compared to what you have left to Francisco, our legacies are very little. But let's not talk about it anymore, I have come to tell you that I am going to live in Mataró.”
“Why Mataró? Is business not going well for you?”
“Don't worry, mother, I'm going to expand the company. In Mataró, there is more of a market.”
“Your father would be proud of you,” Teresa would have wanted to tell him, but she sensed that it would have irritated him and she just told him, “Be careful not to take a step too far.”
