through Seville. I hope you admired the dress; it was new this year, a
present from the ladies of Seville. It cost one hundred and fifty
thousand _pesetas_; I know because I helped pay for it. You saw there
were bread riots last week, not fifty miles from here? It’s the old
spirit of Seville, the spirit that built the cathedral during the
hundred years when Spain was pouring out blood and money like water in
defence of the faith. We can always get what we really want in Seville,
and most other places!”
During the long waits between the acts of the drama of the Passion, the
little dramas of every-day life went on all around us. In the boxes the
young people looked into each other’s eyes, the _duennas_ manœuvred,
encouraged the eligible, frowned on the ineligible. A slim young officer
in a cloak slipped a note into Luz’s hand as he passed her box, and only
the Franciscan saw it. In the crowd below, the flirt of an orange skirt
challenged beauty in the grand stand.
“Imperio, the dancing girl,” said Pemberton. “She’s come home for the
fêtes. That old fellow, her father, is the crack matador tailor; he
makes all Bombito’s toggery.”
“_Miré_,” whispered Concepcion, “The Lord dressed in a handsome tunic of
cloth of silver, embroidered in gold.”
The entry into Jerusalem, a realistic float, was passing. It represented
the Master mounted on an ass, Peter, John, and Sant Iago kneeling before
him. This was followed by a large _paso_, illustrating the Betrayal in
the Garden. Peter, sword in hand, Judas--he was always dressed in
yellow, the color of treachery--the Roman soldiers as well as the
Christ, are all the work of Montañes. It is said that Montañes while he
was at work on this, often got up at night to look at it, and was once
overheard to say, “How could I have done anything so beautiful?” In
spite of the Master’s ruby velvet robe and the tawdry gilt rays behind
his head, the thing took hold of one, the picture “bit” into the memory
plate and will not easily be erased. There was a moment of silence as
the scenes of the Passion were presented in these wonderful vivid
pictures, but as soon as each paso swung by the grand stand, the
laughter and flirtation began again. The tragic _paso_ of the
Crucifixion was escorted by a brotherhood of boy _penitentes_ followed
by a band of child musicians. Directly behind the cross marched a tiny
drummer in uniform, beating a big drum. If he was not a dwarf, he could
not have been more than four years old.
“What a funny little boy!” murmured Concepcion, wiping the tears of
laughter from her eyes. The supreme scene of the Crucifixion, the
figures all by Roldan, the sculptor who spares no grim detail of pain,
was followed by stifled laughter. The merriment struck an awful
anti-climax.
“Remember,” Pemberton explained, “you are seeing this thing for the
first time; these people have seen it all their lives; familiarity
breeds, not contempt, but a certain callousness. The young women are so
strictly guarded, you must not blame them if they ‘make eyes’ a little.
This is one of their few chances to see and be seen.”
“Do you make as much of Christmas as of Holy Week?” I asked Concepcion,
to turn the conversation. “Which is the greater _fiesta_?”
“There are three great _fiestas_ of the Church,” she answered, “but
Christmas is, undoubtedly, the greatest. There is a saying, ‘Who does
not fast on the vigil of Christmas is either a Turk or a dog.’ This is
true for people of our religion, for at midnight the Niño Jesus was
born. I do not know how it is with you, for we are Catholics and you are
Christians.”
“In what does the difference lie?”
“In the manner of baptism. You are baptized all over in a great vat with
water only; we, with water, oil, and salt that is put in the mouth.
There are also other ceremonies,--there is the godmother who holds the
candle.”
“What are the Christmas services like?”
“Ah, you must return, if only to see the dancing of the _seises_ in the
cathedral. I am told this can be seen only at Seville. The _seises_ are
boys, who wear curious dresses and long blond curls. It is an ancient
custom,--my husband says, in memory of the Israelites dancing before the
ark, but I think differently.”
“At one time there was an effort to break up the dance of the _seises_,”
Pemberton interrupted. “Some busybody complained to the Pope that it was
a heathenish thing. The result of the meddling was a papal bull ordering
that the dancing should stop when the dresses were worn out. That was
long and long ago; the dresses have not worn out yet. They are renewed a
piece at a time, one year a sleeve, another year a cap, so the day has
never come when they are completely outworn. Our _seises_ still dance at
Christmas, Corpus Christi, and the feast of the Conception--that’s my
wife’s _fiesta_, you know.”
“The Christmas ceremonies in the villages are also interesting,” said
Concepcion. “I once saw a procession when the Niño Jesus was carried
through the streets. It was a very large image, the size of a big baby.
It had a beautiful head, and was nicely swaddled. One Christmas as they
were carrying him on his procession (this was years and years ago),
there was a quarrel in the crowd and one man stabbed another. The Niño
Jesus grew pale and turned his head on one side, so that he might not
see that dreadful sight. He has remained in that attitude ever since. I
myself have seen the Niño. Yes, it was a wonderful happening. It is a
much venerated image and has always remained in the care of the good
Franciscan monks.”
Concepcion saw that I was interested, that Pemberton was busy explaining
things to the others, and, out of the immense goodness of her heart, she
went on to speak to me of religious matters.
“I have always heard it said,” she began, “that there are seven
religions.”
“I, too, have heard it, indeed, my pastor has written a book on the
subject;[1] can you tell me their names?”
“Not all of them. There are Catholics, Christians, and those who worship
Mahomet. There are the Israelites,--they have the strangest religion!
They worship a calf’s head. In their church they put on the queerest
garments, gather round a great calf’s head in the middle, and sing such
a curious hymn, ‘Wow, Wow!’ It sounds like that. It would make you
laugh, only they will not let you into the synagogue, and if you do just
manage to peep in, they drive you out.”
I told her of the wailing of the Jews outside the wall of Jerusalem,
hoping to rouse some sympathy for them, but Concepcion could feel none.
“Though,” she acknowledged, “our Lord _was_ an Israelite. He did not
become a Catholic till he was thirty-three years old, when He had
Himself baptized by San Juan Battisto. Before that He occupied Himself
with preaching His religion.”
I asked Concepcion which of the saints was her especial patron.
“The blessed saints are all very good,” she answered, “but I myself do
not put much dependence on them. I place all my hopes on the Virgin.”
As Concepcion talked, the sun went down; long shadows fell across the
plaza. The pale rose-colored Giralda glowed a deeper pink in the sunset,
and then faded. The new moon came up in the faint lavender sky and hung,
a golden scimitar, the evening star beside it, over the tower. In the
minaret where the muezzin once cried his shrill “_Allah il Allah_,” San
Miquel and el Cantor, rocked and pealed, saluting each float as it
passed.
“See, the crescent and the star over the Giralda,” said Pemberton; “the
cross gleams red on the cathedral. Mary reigns in Mahomet’s place, and
her robe is worked in the arabesques of the Moors.”
Walking home, we came upon a _paso_ at rest in a side street. The velvet
hangings that fall from the base to the ground were parted. We caught a
glimpse of the hidden motive power, twenty-five or thirty men, with
quaint, padded turbans on their heads, the ends hanging down and
covering the shoulder. The water seller in his white garments was in
attendance. He filled and refilled his glass, passing it to the thirsty
bearers, who drank, and mopped their faces silently. The masked
_penitentes_ stood at ease, fanning themselves, the _Nazerenos_ trimmed
their torches.
“_Vamos!_” The leader struck the ground with his silver staff; the
velvet hangings fell in place (the embossed pattern was so contrived
that the air holes were invisible), and the heavy _paso_ moved steadily
down the _calle_ on the heads and shoulders of those hidden men.
In the processions of Holy Thursday and Good Friday afternoons, the
mysteries of the Passion were represented again and again with endless
variations. The _pasos_ seemed to grow more splendid, the dresses and
accessories more lavish. The brotherhoods, called _hermandads_ or
_cofradias_, have charge of the floats, called _pasos_ or _andas_, the
statues, and all the paraphernalia of the pageants. There is a certain
rivalry between them; some excel in one particular, some in another. One
of the treasures I remember was a huge and very beautiful crucifix of
tortoise shell and silver. The dresses of _penitentes_ and _Nazerenos_
were never alike; some were in white with blue masks, some in black and
silver. They all followed the same plan, the head and face were so
disguised that it was impossible to recognize the man in the penitent’s
dress. The _Hermandad_ of _Nuestro Padre Jesus de la Passion_, founded
in the sixteenth century, is the oldest brotherhood. In its early days
the _Hermanos de Sangue_ scourged themselves as they walked barefoot
through the streets. Those who carried the torches were distinguished
from the flagellants by the title _Hermanos de Luz_.
“Brothers of light,” Pemberton translated it. “Who would not be glad to
deserve such a title? To be a true ‘Brother of light!’”
IV
THE BLACK VEIL
_Tres jueves hay en el año_
_que relumbran mas que el sol;_
_Corpus Christi, Jueves Santo,_
_y el dia de la Ascencion._
Three Thursdays in the year
Shine brighter than the sun;
Corpus Christi, Holy Thursday,
And the day of the Ascension.
“Hark, Pan pipes!” said J., “don’t you hear that lovely thin music of
the shepherd’s flute?”
“Here in Seville? Is it possible?”
“Why not? All things are possible when you are living half in the tenth
century, half in the twentieth!”
The sylvan melody, shrilling louder, pierced the city’s drone. At our
gate the piper paused and played his little tune again. He was a tall
young man with a bold eye and a gay lilt of the head. His blue apron
was tucked under his jacket, he wore a red rose behind his ear. There
was something free and debonair about him that spoke the youth of the
world; his music stirred the blood. I could have followed him and his
pipe through the streets without a thought of the business of the day.
“A wandering knife grinder from La Mancha,” said J., pulling out his
sketchbook. “Find some scissors or something for him to sharpen. Can’t
you keep him busy a moment, while I try to draw him?”
He would not stay; you cannot deceive a Manchegan. He saw at a glance
there was “nothing doing” for him in our patio; sounded his flute and
went lightly on his way, his wheel at his back. If knives were to grind,
he was ready to grind them even on a _fiesta grande_ like Holy Thursday.
Before his music was out of earshot, Concepcion appeared at the gate, a
pink japonica in her hair, her fan the same color, a shade darker.
Behind her, like a tall, thin shadow, came Pemberton.
“Another fan? Do you never carry the same twice?”
“Oh, yes, she has to, poor child,” said Pemberton. “She possesses only
fifty-five fans; Luz, I hear, owns three hundred and fifty. You’re
feeling fit, I hope? We have a long day before us. We go first to San
Lorenzo to see the monument,--sepulchre you call it in Italy.
Concepcion says we shall be in time to see the arrival of the royal
party. They must go on foot like the rest of us to-day; not a bell may
ring, not a wheel turn in all Seville, this week, from Wednesday night
till Saturday noon.”
Only the wheel of the Brother of Light, the wandering knife grinder of
La Mancha!
The Plaza San Lorenzo was filled with people, the trees with small boys;
a mannerly crowd with no hoodlums; indeed, I think the genus does not
exist in Spain. Soon the word was passed: “They are coming.” The throng
shifted, a way was made for the king’s halberdiers, fierce men with
twisted moustachios and bronzed skins, the very flower of the army.
Their duty is to guard, day and night, the person of the King. The civil
governor, Lopez Balesteros, followed with his aides, and the Alcalde of
Seville, a bulky, puffing man. His gown and his fat made it hard for him
to keep the pace of those tough, quick-marching swashbucklers. Last,
surrounded by his major domos of the week and his gentlemen of the
chamber, the King, long of leg, slender of body, with the heavy,
underhung jaw, the slovenly nether lip of the Hapsburgs, a boyish
dignity, and a frank smile all his own. He wore a smart uniform with a
white plumed helmet.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF PHILIP II. _Coello_]
“Don Alfonzo has as many incarnations as Jupiter,” said Pemberton.
“To-day he is a major general of cavalry. Notice that gold chain and
tell me, if you can, what it is.”
The chain, wide and flat, with elaborately wrought links, was flung over
the King’s shoulders. From it hung a little gold animal uncomfortably
tied by the middle; its head and legs all flopping down in a dreadful
way, like a horse being hoisted on board ship.
“By the great horn spoon!” cried Patsy; “it’s the grand order of the
Golden Fleece! I would rather own that than be King of Spain.”
The golden toy hung on the young King’s breast just as it hangs in
Alonzo Coello’s portrait of Philip II. Beside the King walked his
mother--she looks a bigot worthy of Philip’s house--and his sister, the
Infanta Maria Teresa, enough like him, in spite of her white mantilla,
to be his twin.
Sanchez Lozano, Elder Brother of the Parish Confraternity, José Ponce,
the archpriest, and half a dozen other bigwigs met the royalties at the
door of San Lorenzo. The bigwigs made oration, long and loud, the King
took off his helmet and mopped his crimson face. It was a cruelly hot
day for the season.
“They work the boy hard,” said Pemberton. “He was at the cathedral at
half past nine, this morning, and led the procession to deposit the
Host in the monument. Next he went to the church of San Salvador; this
is his third sepulchre. They have walked him all over the place; warm
work in that thick uniform. If every Spaniard earned his salt as
honestly as Don Alfonzo, Spain would not be where she is to-day.”
Pemberton heard afterwards, from one of the Brothers, what passed in the
church while we waited in the plaza. The King, after praying by the
sepulchre, a flower-decked, candle-lighted space before the altar, and
admiring the _pasos_ of the Virgin of Solitude and the Christ of Great
Power, talked with the elder Brother, asked if he too, walked masked in
the procession of penitence. Sanchez Lozano said that he did, and
reminded Don Alfonzo that Isabel II, the King’s grandmother, and
Ferdinand VII, his great grandfather, had been members of this
Brotherhood. The King and the Infanta, without more ado, took the oath
and signed the articles of the Brotherhood.
“Of course it had all been cut, dried, and smoked beforehand,” Pemberton
added. “Royalty does not often have an opportunity to enjoy the
unforeseen!”
When they came out of church, the King had faded to a healthy pink; we
no longer feared apoplexy for him. The gorgeous, sweating company
crossed the plaza, the crowd cheered, the ladies in the balconies
clapped hands and waved ’kerchiefs.
“Come,” said Pemberton, “to see beauty, follow in a monarch’s wake. We
shall find the handsomest women of Seville inside the church.”
A dozen ladies, their flushed, excited faces reflecting the royal smile,
clustered about the sad Virgin. A señorita, in black gauze with pink
camelias in her hair and bodice, tapped a silver money tray with a
copper coin:
“Did they desire to purchase a photograph of our Lady?” She spoke to me,
she looked at Patsy.
A nun in a coarse habit passed; the rough woolen of her gown caught in
the hem of the young lady’s silk dress, and showed a pair of little feet
in flesh-colored silk stockings and satin shoes.
“At the feet of the young lady,” said Patsy, “I desire greatly to
purchase a photograph. Will she do me the divine favor of choosing?”
“I kiss the hand of the horseman. It appears this large one is the most
good; it is, as well, the more dear.”
The slight lisp, the smell of jasmines, the turn of wrist, as the pink
fan opened and shut, were all familiar. Where--when--had we seen her?
Patsy knew: it was Luz of the agate eyes!
I forget what day it was that Pemberton and I stayed at the cathedral
after mass to hear the Archbishop’s sermon, but this seems a good time
to tell about it. The Archbishop was a refined, silvery old ascetic, who
looked like Cardinal Newman. He preached as the students of the Theatre
Français talk, as if speech were first a fine art, second an expression
of thought. Pausing now and then from exhaustion, he poured out an
eloquent appeal to love the Mother of God. After service the Archbishop
was escorted to the episcopal palace near the cathedral, by a sacristan,
carrying a silver mace, another with a tall, double cross, and six
haughty young priests in new purple silk gowns.
“Do you notice,” asked Pemberton, “the difference between the Italian
and the Spanish priests? The Italian looks at you sidelong, when you are
not looking; sizes up your feeling about him and his church. Your
Spaniard is a bird of a different feather; he doesn’t give a maravedi
what you think of him. You are on trial, not he. The only question is,
are you what you should be? That he is, there can be no peradventure.”
We joined the crowd of women and beggars following the Archbishop in his
fine violet robe, scarlet moire skull-cap, and amethyst cross. A
wild-eyed woman with a bruised face threw herself at his feet, holding
up a despairing hand as if in appeal. Tired and feeble, the old man
paused patiently, and said some words of fatherly comfort. She kissed
the great sapphire on his transparent old hand and drew back weeping, as
if ashamed.
“The heart of man changeth not,” said Pemberton. “In the days of the
Inquisition there were priests tender-hearted as the Archbishop. He
could not send a cat to torture or the stake. That big priest, with the
brutal jaw, the one who limps, looks cruel as Torquemada; he would
condemn a man to la Parra (the dungeon in the Bishop’s Palace over
there) as quick as winking--if he could!”
The shadow on the sun-dial over the palace door pointed to twelve. We
followed the women into the handsome courtyard, hung with blue and
striped hangings, and watched the Archbishop totter feebly up the fine
marble stair. At the door he turned and gave the episcopal blessing, two
fingers raised, and went indoors with his escort. He was followed by
people bearing gifts of fruit and cakes. Four strong men carried up a
large tray of yellow frosted pyramids stuck all over with candied
cherries.
“Red and yellow, the Spanish colors,” said Pemberton. “I hope Torquemada
and the others stay to luncheon and eat up those pyramids; they would
not be good for the Archbishop.”
On Holy Thursday afternoon, the ceremony of the Washing of Feet was
celebrated in the cathedral. The King, it was said, would take the first
rôle; the Archbishop, however, officiated in his place. On a platform
before the high altar stood the benches for the apostles. The twelve
poor old men who impersonated them came toddling in, each carrying a
clean, fringed towel over his shoulder. They took the shoe and stocking
from the right foot. One old fellow, Concepcion’s friend, the beggar at
the cathedral door, was so infirm that he could scarcely untie his shoe.
He persisted bravely, though, and to him Torquemada, who assisted the
Archbishop, first presented the silver basin. The pauper placed his foot
in it, Torquemada poured water from a silver flagon; the old Archbishop,
kneeling, kissed the beggar’s foot.
“Isn’t it a pleasant ceremony?” said Pemberton. “Poor old chaps, no
wonder they look so proud. To-day they have dined with the Archbishop in
his palace, and those fine new clothes are their very own for keeps.”
The service was followed by the singing of the _tenebrae_. It was
growing dark in the cathedral; all the light and color were concentrated
in the _coro_, glowing like a live jewel in the centre of the shadowy
church. An aged crone, a battered derelict on life’s stream, drifted
by, touching here and there at altar and at shrine, as at so many
friendly ports. She came to anchor before our Lady of Good Counsel, and
took out her rosary. At every _pater noster_ she kissed her beads. Those
pathetic, mumbling old lips must have had sore need of something to
kiss. She pressed them over and over again on the cold glass that
covered a little chromo of Our Lady of Good Counsel, set conveniently
low in the wall, for the kisses of the forlorn old lips that missed
perhaps the warm cheeks of child or grandchild. Outside the _coro_,
below the black veil that hung before the altar, stood the vast bronze
_tenebrium_, with its fifteen great candles. An acolyte with a long
torch kindled the candles, and the first lamentation rang through the
cathedral. One by one, as each pitiful lament commemorating the
suffering and death of Christ trailed into silence, a candle was
extinguished, till the fourteen symbolical of the apostles were all put
out. It grew darker and darker; at last only the taper at the top
remained alight in memory of Christ, the unquenchable light of the
world.
Later that evening we returned to the cathedral for the miserere. The
Calle de Sierpes was filled with a holiday crowd. In the balconies
outside the cafés, at the street corners, were groups of young and old,
little children, graybeards, and grandams; during Holy Week it seemed
that nobody in Seville went to bed.
“_El Liberal!_” A newsboy offered the sheet, wet from the press.
“_Agua, agua fresca!_” The grave water seller followed close on his
heels.
“_Dos por uno perro chico_,” cried a correct old man, with beautifully
curled silver hair and beard, selling shoe laces. A woman who looked
like a caryatid, with a basket of royal purple flags on her head, bought
a pair of laces. A young girl with a dimple, carrying her boots in one
hand and two large dried codfish in the other, accidentally jostled me.
The caryatid, evidently her mother, cried, “_Cuidada!_” rather sharply.
“_Dispense V._,” said the dimple, blushing and distressed at the
mischance.
“_Manos blancas no ofendan_” (white hands never hurt), said Pemberton.
“What good manners these people have!” I said, as we passed on, leaving
the girl still under the shadow of the caryatid’s displeasure.
“The finest manners in the world,” Pemberton agreed.
In the cathedral flickering torches shone on a vast congregation met to
hear Eslava’s miserere: matadors, gypsies, nuns, babies, beggars,
beauties of court and theatre. Every girl in a mantilla looked a
heroine, every lad with a straight back, a hero, in that witchery of
light and shadow. From our places neither orchestra nor musicians were
in sight, only solemn columns, long aisles, and twinkling lamps before
pictured Nativity and Pietá. Two votive candles were burning before
Santa Teresa, showing the wax ex-votos of little hands, legs, and feet,
hanging from long braids of hair around the shrine. Near the _puerta
mayor_ a blaze of glory shone from the white and gold monument over the
tomb of Ferdinand Columbus, where the Host had been that morning
deposited to remain till the first mass on Saturday morning, surrounded
by kneeling monks.
“I fancy,” said Pemberton, “that here, in the cathedral where he was
chapel master, Eslava planned his miserere,--caught, while he sat
dreaming at the organ, the divine harmonies it repeats.”
The twin organs called and answered each other, the deep notes thrilled
and thundered through the aisles. The clear boy voices scaled the
heights of song; the mellow altos held the middle ground, the deep
basses welded voices, organs, instruments, into a full glorious harmony
that swept the soul. The miserere over, one by one the great _pasos_ of
the afternoon’s procession, taking on a new and awful beauty in the dim
cathedral, swung slowly down the aisle, halting at the monument on the
way to their several stations.