Besides them there were only the carbineers installed in the barracks and various calkers making their mallets resound on the hull of a schooner ordered by the Blanes brothers.
All the active men were on the sea.

Some were sailing to America as crew of the brigs and barks of the Catalunian coast.

The more timid and unfortunate ones were always fishing.

Others, more valiant and anxious for ready money, had become smugglers on the French coast whose shores began on the other side of the promontory.
In the village there were only women, women of all kinds:--women seated before their doors, making lace on great cylindrical pillows on their knees, along whose length their bobbins wove strips of beautiful openwork, or grouped on the street corners in front of the lonely sea where their men were, or speaking with an electric nervousness that oftentimes would break out suddenly in noisy tempests.
Only the parish priest, whose fishing recreations and official existence were embittered by their constant quarrels, understood the feminine irritability which embroiled the village.

Alone and having to live incessantly in such close contact, the women had come to hate each other as do passengers isolated on a boat for many months.