Cain by José Saramago Page A

for the women and children, the israelites took them captive, as well as seizing their cattle, sheep, and all their other goods and
chattels. They presented this booty to moses and to the priest eleazar and to the congregation of the children of israel, who were encamped on the plains of moab, by the river jordan, near jericho, toponymic details which we give here merely to show that we have invented nothing. On learning the outcome of the battle, moses was angry and he demanded of the soldiers entering the encampment, Why did you not also kill the women who caused the israelites to trespass against the lord and worship instead the god baal, thus causing a plague among the people of the lord, I order you, therefore, to go back and kill every male child and every woman who has lain with a man, and as for the female children
and those women who have not yet lain with a man, you may keep them for yourselves. None of this surprised cain. What was new to him was the sharing out of the spoils, which we set down here as an indispensable record of the customs of the day, with apologies to the reader for an
excess of detail for which we are not
responsible. This is what the lord
said to moses, You and the priest eleazar and the chief fathers of the congregation take the sum of the spoils that were taken, both of men and of beasts, and divide them into two parts, half for the soldiers who fought in the battle and the other half for the congregation. From the soldiers' half you will take as a tribute to the lord one soul of every five hundred, both of people and of beasts, oxen, asses or sheep. Of the children of israel's half you will take one portion of every fifty, both of people and of beasts, oxen, asses or
sheep, and give them to the levites, who
guard the tabernacle of the
lord. Moses did as the lord commanded. And the booty that the israelite soldiers took was six hundred and seventy- five thousand sheep, seventy-two thousand oxen, sixty-one thousand asses and thirty-two thousand women who had not lain with men. And the half corresponding to the soldiers who had gone into battle was, therefore, three hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep, of which the lord's tribute was six hundred and seventy-five, thirty-six thousand oxen, of which the lord's tribute was seventy-two, thirty thousand five hundred asses, of which the lord's tribute was sixty-one, and sixteen thousand people, of which the lord's tribute was thirty-two. The other half, which moses gave to the israelites, consisted also of three hundred and thirty- seven thousand five hundred sheep, thirty-six thousand oxen, thirty thousand five hundred asses and sixteen thousand women who had not lain with men. Of that half, moses took one portion of every fifty, both of people and of
beasts, and just as the lord commanded, he
gave them to the levites, who
guard the tabernacle of the lord. But this was not all. In gratitude to the lord for having saved their lives, for
none of them had died in the battle, the
soldiers, through the intermediary
of their commanding officers, offered up to the lord the gold they had found during the sack of the town. Those bracelets, bangles, rings, earrings and necklaces weighed in at some three hundred and seventy pounds. As has been amply demonstrated, as well as being naturally gifted with the brain of a book-keeper and being very quick at mental arithmetic too, the lord is also what one can only describe as very rich. Still astonished by the abundance of cattle, slave-women and gold, the fruits of the battle
against the midianites, cain thought, War
is obviously very good business
indeed, perhaps the best of all, to judge by the ease with which, in an instant, one can acquire thousands and thousands of oxen, sheep, asses and women, this lord will one day be known as the god of war, I can see no other use for him, thought cain, and he was right. It is quite possible that the pact that some say exists between god and men contains