COSAS DE ESPAÑA.
From Cordova I came on to San Sebastian, the Brighton of Spain. How
people can go to Biarritz while there is a San Sebastian, I cannot
imagine. I have never seen such a beautiful watering-place, or one
surrounded by such magnificent scenery. And all around is hallowed
English ground, for here and at Pasajes are hundreds of graves of
English officers and soldiers who fell in the siege. The graves on the
hill at San Sebastian are terribly neglected. Many of the stones are
overgrown with weeds, and the inscriptions are effaced. A few pounds
judiciously spent would put them in order again. Wild and picturesque is
the rough mountain cemetery of British heroes who fell in a far-off
land; but, unless something is done, a few more years will see many of
the headstones down, and the graves overgrown with weed and briar, and
then no man will know where our dead braves lie.
Pasajes, the quaintest place in the world, is within easy reach of San
Sebastian. It is a land-locked harbour, and looks for all the world like
a lake surrounded on all sides by hills, until you come upon a gully
between high, overhanging cliffs, when, after a few minutes’ sail, you
catch a glimpse of the open sea. One of the rocks is surmounted by a
castle tower, and is called Castillo de Santa Isabel. Pasajes is a
thriving town, and it is from this port that the Basques and Spanish
emigrants sail for South America; but it is doubtful whether it has not
missed its vocation. With a harbour the existence of which cannot be
guessed from the sea, it is an ideal pirate’s nest.
After a Spanish tour is over, the traveller divides Spain into two
portions--the portion that was conquered by the Moor, and the portion
that was not. Of the first portion he brings away a wondrous remembrance
of glorious architecture and graceful decoration; of the second portion,
the things which linger longest in his memory are the dances and the
bull-fights.
To me the worst part of a bull-fight was the barbarous cruelty to the
horses. They had _no chance_. They were simply brought into the arena to
be gored, and, when they fell, they were beaten most brutally with
sticks to get them to rise again. When they staggered to their feet, and
tottered in the death agony, the Spaniards shouted with laughter. Even
when the poor beasts lay in the last quiver of death, they were
barbarously ill-used by the assistants, who tore the harness from them
to put it on other victims. A more dastardly exhibition of brutality I
never witnessed in my life. One feels sorry for the bull; but at least
he has _some_ sport. His treatment is cruel enough in all conscience;
but he has four or five years of luxurious living in order to prepare
him for his death. The poor horses only come to the arena to be tortured
after wearing out their lives in the service of their master. Many of
them are poor half-starved cab horses, and can hardly totter when they
are spurred and beaten into the ring. If you say to a Spaniard that it
is cruel to beat a horse like this, he stares at you and says, ‘Ah, but
he is not a good horse, no vale na; he is worth nothing.’ There are
some points in a bull-fight which command admiration for skill and
dexterity. The espadas (the real heroes of the proceedings, the leading
actors and stars) perform brilliant feats alone with the bull, and often
incur great risks. But these would be far more worthy of admiration if
they were performed before the bull had been tired out by baiting and
weakened by loss of blood, instead of after. But it is useless
protesting to a Spaniard. Bull-fights are their national pastime--the
love of them is born with them, and you might as well try to mop up the
sea as to put them down or abate their cruelty.
The horses and the horsemanship in Madrid are unequalled in any other
town of Europe. The men ride as if they were born in the saddle. They
ride horses that would cause every head to turn in Rotten Row over the
stone-paved streets and in and out of the heaviest traffic. The
Andalusian horse is a beautiful creature, and here is groomed to
perfection. Everybody in Madrid keeps a horse and a carriage. Everything
is sacrificed for show and outward appearance. There are families who go
without meat for dinner that they may turn out in the drive in good
style.
In Madrid I learnt the national cure for a cold on the chest. You
squeeze the juice of an orange into a cup; you put in a heap of sugar,
and you fill up with a hot decoction of marshmallow, which they call
Flor de Malva. Then you go to bed and perspire. The next morning your
chest is easy. I tried the remedy and found it efficacious. The drink is
soothing and comforting. Try it. You need not wait till you have a cold.
Bad money is very common in all parts of Spain. Sometimes the coins have
merely undergone the process of ‘sweating,’ more often than not they are
altogether spurious.
Some years ago the newspapers announced that, on a certain day, new
five-peseta pieces, bearing as impress the head of the little King,
would be issued. No one had yet seen a coin with the effigy of the Rey
chico, and so the issue of the new coins was awaited with eagerness. A
gang of coiners immediately set to work, and early on the morning of the
day announced they set forth to circulate them. One of them would enter
a tramcar or omnibus and offer the conductor, when the latter came for
his fare, one of the ‘new coins.’ The conductor naturally remarked upon
it as the first he had seen, and examined it with interest. The
curiosity of the passengers was roused; everybody was eager to see the
new coins and the first portrait of the little King; and so when the
owner of it explained that he had just come from the Bank, where he had
received a number of them, and said that he was willing to exchange a
few of the new pieces for old ones, his offer was gratefully accepted.
Thus it happened that before a single genuine coin had left the Mint,
Madrid was in possession of an immense number of false ones.
In a previous chapter I referred to the Spanish theatre, and I mentioned
the peculiarities of the modern drama as it is understood in Spain. The
favourite dramatist of the day, the Most Excellent Señor Don José
Echegaray, had just produced a new drama at the Teatro Español, in
Madrid, which only took him thirty days to write, according to rumour.
The title of the drama is ‘La Realidad y el Delirio’ (Reality and
Delirium), and there is a good deal of both in the production. The plot
is a fair specimen of Echegaray’s method and the kind of drama which the
Spaniards accept as an evening’s entertainment, and so it may interest
the reader to hear all about it, more especially as since the Ibsen boom
set in our English critics have taken Echegaray under their wing.
Gonzalo and Angela are newly married, and, like most newly-married
folks, they love each other. Enrico is Gonzalo’s friend; he is also a
bad young man who has conceived an unholy passion for his friend’s wife.
One day he tells Angela that Gonzalo, who has just left home, pretending
that he was to make a long journey on business, is really about to pay a
visit to a young lady who lives in a certain house in a street close by.
Angela is much upset by the communication, and becomes a prey to various
conflicting emotions. Enrico, at last, while she is in a state of great
excitement, induces her to accompany him to a lonely house, from the
windows of which she sees Gonzalo entering the house of Julia, the young
lady previously referred to. Angela faints and falls into Enrico’s arms.
When she recovers from her swoon she despises herself in strong language
and goes home. Gonzalo returns. He tells his wife all she knows already,
but explains that he went to see Miss Julia in order to break off all
relations with her. This noble confession fills Angela with remorse, and
she bitterly repents her jealousy and wickedness. She spreads herself
out in forcible and poetic language, and at considerable length, over
the height of her husband’s love and the depth of her own impropriety.
Enrico has promised Angela never to see her again, and, desiring to keep
his word, he calls upon Gonzalo to bid him good-bye, previous to setting
out on a long sea voyage. Gonzalo, who loves his friend, refuses to hear
of such a scheme, and proposes instead that they should all go to Paris
together. Enrico hesitates and is lost. He consents to go to Paris.
On the way to ‘la Ville Lumière’ an accident on the line causes Gonzalo
to alight from the reserved compartment in which they are all travelling
together. Gonzalo smokes a cigarette and strolls on the line and
inspects the country; but he goes a little too far, and sees the train
starting on its journey again without him. He runs after and catches it
up (an easy matter in Spain, where five miles an hour is the express
speed), but in the hurry he jumps into the wrong compartment, which is
not the ‘reservado,’ but the one next to it. The night is dark, and the
light from the illuminated ‘reservado’ throws a shadowy picture on the
walls of a black cutting through which the train is speeding. Gonzalo,
looking out of the window, sees the ‘shadow on the wall.’ He recognises
the silhouettes of his wife and his friend. Suddenly he sees the shadows
approach each other. One shadow puts its arm round the other shadow’s
neck and kisses it. Presently both shadows’ arms are flung around both
shadows’ necks. Gonzalo waits to see no more. Hideous thoughts flash
across his frenzied brain. He opens the door of the compartment, gets
out upon the footboard, and is making his way along it to the
‘reservado’ to demand an explanation of the occupants, when his foot
slips and he falls heavily upon the line.
Gonzalo escapes death, but he loses his reason. He is picked up and
attended to, and in time he recovers from his wounds, only to be haunted
by the memory of what he saw that fatal night. He raves wildly, madly.
He does not know whether what he saw was real or a hideous nightmare:
whether it was reality or delirium. In this scene the actor takes the
middle of the stage and gives off some of the finest dramatic
soliloquies that Señor Echegaray has ever written.
There is one person beside the guilty parties who knows the truth. This
is the father of Gonzalo. He puts matters to rights by having a duel
with Enrico and killing him. Enrico, repenting his villainy, makes but a
poor defence of his life. The father of Gonzalo then forgives Angela,
and Gonzalo recovers his senses and embraces his wife, and the curtain
falls with Angela standing between father and son and representing,
according to the author, ‘the innocent victim of a villain’s lawless
love, purified by the suffering she has endured and the sorrow she has
known.’