Ganado vacuno

The estancia’s cattle are both the object of Renato’s frantic rescue during a flood and the circumstance that brings Simona beyond the fence that has confined her. Their danger draws him to the torrent; when he is swept away, the episode ends his control over her and opens the way for her to leave the estancia and seek help.

The Herd and Its Enclosure

The cattle belong to the estancia where Simona has been kept increasingly isolated by her husband, Renato. The wire fence defines the limits of her world as well as the boundary meant to contain the livestock: the narrator describes it as designed to prevent both the cattle and Simona from escaping. Its destruction therefore alters the conditions of human confinement and animal husbandry at once.

The cattle are not an abstract measure of property. When floodwater loosens and carries away the fence, a worker rushes into the house at mealtime to report that the water is taking the animals. His warning gives Renato an immediate reason to leave, and he orders Simona to dress and come with him.

The Flood and Rescue Attempt

Renato drives with Simona through a landscape transformed by days of rain. The road has disappeared, loose cows are bellowing, and the fallen remains of the fence have trapped livestock near the river’s edge, preventing them from falling into its center. The torrent, however, is already carrying away some cattle along with stones, bricks, and whole trees.

Renato gets out with a rope and rescues one cow, then another. Simona sees the effort as futile: even the animals he pulls from the water remain surrounded by water. Then Renato disappears from sight. The cattle’s peril has brought him to the river, but the same current that threatens the herd takes him as well.

Narrative Consequences

The flood gives the cattle a direct role in the scene’s chain of events: the threatened herd prompts Renato’s journey to the river, and his rescue attempt places him within reach of the torrent. Simona hears him call for a rope and sees him clinging briefly to a small root before the water carries him away. She does not save him; after watching him vanish, she returns on foot and goes to Fortín Tiburcio to alert the gendarmerie.

The herd is thus caught between its function as livestock and its presence in a disaster with consequences beyond the estancia. The animals’ danger precipitates Renato’s death and, in turn, Simona’s first journey away from the confinement that had defined her life. The fence’s collapse, initially a crisis for the owner and his cattle, becomes the opening through which Simona can leave.