MURCIA--FIRST IMPRESSIONS
One has a right to expect that the station which is the finish of a long
and tiring journey should be both a terminus and have a quality all of
its own. Our egoism makes it seem at that moment the most important
place in the world. But Murcia (pronounced locally Mouthia) had only a
big ugly barn of a station like many through which we had already
passed, and even lacked a Precia Fijo jewellery shop. All we could see
of the town, on emerging, was a few houses and a line of small trees
which appeared as though they had been in a blizzard of whole-meal
flour, so thick was the dust. Over this buff landscape quivered the blue
sky.
In front of us were one or two cranky omnibuses and many green-hooded
two-wheeled carts. These carts were Oriental in appearance and had the
most distinctive appearance we had yet noted in Spain. They were gaily
painted, and the hoods bulged with the generous curves of a Russian
cupola. Inside they were lined with soiled red velvet, and the driver
sat outside of this magnificence on a seat hanging over one of the tall
wheels. Into one of these we were squeezed in company with two grinning
travellers, and started off, soon plunging into the shadow of an avenue
of lime trees, behind the grey trunks of which cowered insignificant
little houses painted in colours which once had been bright.
[Illustration: CARTERS IN THE POSADA]
The more communicative of our fellow travellers said it was indeed the
hottest day of the year. It was hot, but we were not oppressed by it,
and found out in time that the Spaniard always seemed to suffer from
the heat more than we did. Our endeavours to be agreeable in imperfect
Spanish worked up the traveller to a discussion on languages, and to
a eulogy on ourselves for taking the trouble to learn. We said that
we were artists. He answered:
"Ah, yes, that explains it. Poor people, of course, are forced to learn
languages."
We drove across a stone bridge, almost in collision with a bright blue
tram-car. A momentary glimpse was given to us of a muddy river running
between deep embankments; and we drew up before a square barrack of red
brick pierced by a regiment of balconied windows. The proprietor, oily
like a cheerful slug, waved his fingers close to us, and drew back his
hand in delicate jerks as though we were rare and brittle china. He
preceded us into an Alhambra-like central hall, led us carefully up a
stone staircase to a wide balcony, opened a door into a palatial bedroom
with a flourish; and demanded fifteen pesetas "sin extraordinario."
Intuition told us that this was not a case of "Precio Fijo," and we
reduced him gently to eleven pesetas before we accepted the bargain.
Then, to take off the raw edge left by the chaffering, Jan said:
"I don't suppose you get many foreigners here, Señor?"
"Si, si!" returned the hotelkeeper, anxious for the reputation of his
caravanserai. "We get quite a lot. Oh, yes, quite a lot. Why, only last
year we had two French people, un matrimonio; and this year you have
come."
The maid was in appearance and behaviour like an india-rubber ball, and
the conviction was firmly fixed in her mind either that we couldn't
speak Spanish or that she could not understand if we did. So she
grunted, bounced at us and smiled with her mouth wide open like a dog,
hoping that by this means she was translating a Spanish welcome into an
English one. With difficulty we dissuaded her from these antics and
persuaded her to speak, but she turned her words--which were already
dialect--into baby talk; and the less we understood the louder she
shouted.
However, she was a kindly creature and succeeded in cheering our
spirits, which were flagging, for we were very tired and almost ill,
having barely recovered from a severe attack of influenza before leaving
London. We washed off the thick dust and went downstairs into the large
cool hall. The central quadrangle had once probably been open to the
sky, but now was covered, five stories up, by a glass roof, beneath
which sackcloth curtains stretched on wires shut out the sun. There were
comfortable wicker chairs all about, and the hall was decorated with
four solemn plaster busts, one in each corner. We were curious to find
out who were thus honoured in a southern Spanish hotel. One was of
Sorolla, a popular Valencian painter, one was of a woman, a poetess. The
other two we did not know, but think they represented contemporary
literature and architecture. Imagine finding in an English hotel hall
busts of Brangwyn, Mrs. Meynell, Conan Doyle and Lutyens.
The hall was cool. We ordered coffee and buttered toast. But the butter
was rancid, for we had crossed the geographical line, almost as
important as the equator, below which butter is not, and oil must take
its place.
Four children, making a lot of noise over it, were in the hall, playing
a game peculiarly Spanish. The smallest boy, who always had the dirty
work to do, carried flat in front of him a board, to the end of which
were fixed a pair of bull's horns. He dashed these at his comrades in
short straight rushes. Two of the other boys carried pieces of red cloth
which they waved in front of the bull. The fourth boy carried a pair of
toy banderillas, straight sticks, covered with tinted paper and pointed
with a nail. As the bull rushed the "banarillero" dabbed his sticks into
a piece of cork. Then they decided that the bull was to die. One of the
cloak-wavers took a toy sword which he triumphantly stuck into the
cork. With a moan the small boy sank on to the floor. His companions
seized his heels and dragged him round the tiled floor of the hall. The
game seemed to us a little tedious; later on we were to learn how like
to actual bullfighting it was.
The hotel interpreter, for whom we had inquired, now came in. He spoke
in French:
[Illustration]
"What can I do for you?"
We wished to find a gipsy guitar-player named Blas, and we had been told
that the interpreter knew his house. We feared that he might be in
Madrid, where he sometimes played in the Flamenco cafés; but the
interpreter said that he was in Murcia, and that we could look for him
at once.
From the cool hall we stepped into the blazing sun of midday Spain,
crossed an open space so dazzling that it hurt the eyes, and entered a
maze of narrow, tall streets. Jan and I moved along in single file,
clinging to the narrow margins of shadow which edged the houses, while
the interpreter with a mere uniform cap on his head stalked
imperturbably in the sunlight. Across squares we hurried as rapidly as
possible to the shadow on the opposite side. The houses were orange,
pink, blue or a neutral grey which set off the hue of the tinted
buildings. The squares were planted with feathery trees of a green so
vivid that it appeared due to paint rather than to nature.
It was a clear and windless day, and soon we remarked a characteristic
which Murcia exhibited more strongly than any other Spanish town we have
visited. Each house had exuded its own smell across the pavement, so as
one went along one sampled a variety of Spanish household odours. Some
people find an intimate connection between colour and smell. We might
say that we passed successfully through a pink smell, a purple smell, a
citron green smell, a terra verte smell (very nasty), a cobalt smell, a
raw sienna smell, and so on. This characteristic clung to Murcia during
the greater part of our stay.
About fifteen minutes' walk through these variegated odoriferous layers
brought us into a street of mean appearance. The interpreter stopped
before a large gateway door, pushed it open and ushered us into a
courtyard in the corner of which was a black earthenware pot astew over
an open fire. A brown-faced crone, withered with dirt and age, her
clothes ragged, her feet shod in burst alpagatas, asked us what had
brought us there.
"Where is Blas?" said the interpreter.
With an unctuous gesture the old gipsy crone spread out her hands, and
turning to a doorway shouted out some words. Gipsy women young and old
came from the house. They were dark, dirty and tousled, clad in draggled
greys or vermilions, many carrying brown babies astraddle on the hip.
With gestures, almost Indian in subservience, they crowded about us,
looking at us with ill-disguised curiosity. The interpreter repeated his
question.
"Blas," said a young, beautiful, though depressed-looking woman, "is not
in the house."
[Illustration]
"The English Señor will speak to him," commanded the interpreter. "Send
him to the hotel when he comes home."
Then our friend the interpreter determined to earn a large tip, and
calculating on our ignorance brought us back by the longest route, past
all the principal buildings of the town; thereby quadrupling the journey
through the baking streets. Our desires, however, were fixed on home.
We were staggering beneath the heat. Had the interpreter but known it,
his tip would have been increased by celerity; but, stung by our apathy
over public monuments, he took us into a courtyard to look at some
gigantic tomatoes gleaming in the shade, and ran us across the street to
examine a skein of fine white catgut, dyed orange at the tips, which a
workman was carrying. He explained that this was for medical operations
and for fishing lines, which was a local industry.
Lunch was ready when we got back, a prolonged and delicious lunch for
those in health, but we could eat little of it. Black olives were in a
dish on the table; and the fruit included large ripe figs, peaches,
pears and apricots. A curious fact we had noted was that much of the
fruit did not ripen properly. Either it was unripe or else had begun to
rot in the centre. The sun was too strong to allow it to reach the stage
of exquisite ripeness which the more temperate climate of England
encourages. The waiter was dismayed by our lack of appetite. He urged us
repeatedly to further gastronomic efforts, and holding dishes beneath
our noses stirred up the contents with a fork. At last he made us a
special salad which was not on the menu. The other occupants of the long
white restaurant were all fat men who swallowed course after course in
spite of the heat. We looked at them and thought: "No wonder there are
so many plump people in Spain."
After coffee in the large hall, we went to our bedroom for a rest. The
windows of our room looked southwards, over the muddy river. Immediately
beneath was a road on which was a wayside stall of bottles and old
ironwork, an ice-cream vendor, a boy roasting coffee on a stove, turning
a handle round and round while the coffee beans rustled in the heated
iron globe, sending up a delicious smell to our windows. A row of
covered carriages, tartanas, waited beneath the shadows of the riverside
trees. All along the opposite bank were two-storied mills, and beyond
them the town stretched out in a wedge of flat roofs bursting up into
church towers. Green market gardens came up to the edge of the town, and
covered the valley to the base of the hills with a dense growth of flat
and flourishing green which one had not expected thus far south in
Spain.
We were awakened from our siesta by the spherical maid who mouthed and
pantomimed that a Señor was waiting for us in the hall. Luis Garay, a
young painter and lithographer to whom our friend had written about us,
had come at the earliest opportunity. He was slim, sallow, almost
dapper, with dark frank eyes, and we took a liking to him at once.
Together we went outside the hotel and sat at a table in the open place
facing the principal promenade of Murcia. The river was on the
right-hand side, and on the left was a line of tall buildings, some
cafés, others municipal. The heat attacked one in waves, it seemed as
palpable as though it possessed substance. When we took our seats the
plaza was empty because the siesta was not yet over, but after four
o'clock had passed gradually the life of the town blossomed out.
The army of beggars attacked us; in monotonous undertones they moaned
their woes.
"Hermanito, una limosna qui Dios se la pagara,"[5] they whined.
To those who seemed unworthy Luis answered, "Dios le ayude."[6]
How exquisite is the courtesy of the Spaniard even to a beggar. Our
manners have not this fine habitual touch--after the international
occupation of Scutari the beggars of the town had learned two English
phrases; one was "G'arn," the other "Git away." It is true that under
this harsh exterior the Englishman may hide a soft heart; he may be
like the schoolmaster who feels the caning more poignantly than does
the schoolboy; indeed many a man puts a deliberately rough exterior on
to mask the flabbiness of his sentimental nature; and the Spaniard, for
all his courtesy, may have the harder nature. Yet the courtesy which
recognizes a common level of humanity is a precious thing. It may be
that by refusing alms with respect one may be preserving in the beggar
finer qualities than would be generated by giving with contempt. A
Spaniard once said, "I like a beggar to say 'Hermanito, alms which God
will repay.' It is naïf and simple. It has a beauty for which one
willingly pays a copper. But when a beggar whines that he has eaten
nothing for three days, it is offensive. It is an insult to give a man a
halfpenny who has eaten nothing for three days; and one cannot afford to
give him the price of a square meal; and anyhow one knows that he is
lying."
As well as the pitiful beggars there were the musical beggars. Two men
came playing the guitar and laud. Another followed with a gramophone
which he carried from his shoulder by a strap. Then came the
barrel-organ. We had not noted its arrival. Suddenly the most appalling
din broke out. Awhile ago in Paris M. Marinetti organized a futurist
orchestra; one could imagine that it had been transported in miniature
to Murcia. There were bangs and thumps and crashes of cymbals, and
tattoos of drums, and tinkles of treble notes, and plonkings of base
notes intermixed apparently without order, rhythm or tune. What a state
the barrel must have been in! Once we presume that it played a tune, but
now it was so decrepit that nothing as such was recognizable. It was
dragged by a donkey and a cart and shepherded by a fat white dog which
had been shaved, partly because of the heat, partly because of vermin.
It was an indecent-looking dog, and the flesh stood out in rolls all
round its joints. No sooner had this musical horror disappeared round
the corner than another organ in an equal state of disrepair took its
place.
[Illustration: A MURCIAN BEGGAR-WOMAN]
"It is all right," Luis reassured us; "you have suffered the worst.
There are only two in the town."
A crowd of urchins carrying home-made boot-blacking boxes pestered us
with offers of "Limpia botas." A man and a woman sauntered between the
tables bellowing and screaming "Les numeros"; these were state lottery
sellers.
Also there were sellers of local lotteries, which were promoted by the
Church in aid of the disabled whom they employed to sell the tickets.
Nuns, too, were amongst the beggars. There were boys selling newspapers;
men selling meringues and pastry, others hawking fried almonds, very
salt to excite thirst; children hunting between the legs of the tables
and chairs for cast cigarette ends or straws discarded by the drinkers;
a man peddling minor toilet articles--toothpicks, scent, powder,
buttonhooks--and another with a basket of very odorous dried fish.
The smell of the fish banished our new-won universal brotherhood and we
waved the fish vender away without courtesy. But an elegantly dressed
young man sitting near accosted him and began to chaff him. But what was
pretence to the dude was earnest to the salesman. He had some talent for
selling and he pestered the dude for nearly half an hour, at the end of
which the latter in self-defence and for the sake of peace bought a
portion of the smelly commerce. Probably the fishmonger's total gain out
of the transaction was a fraction of a penny. But the Spanish is not a
wasteful nation. When the dude walked off home he took with him the fish
wrapped in his newspaper.
At last we called the waiter by the Spanish custom of clapping the
hands, paid for the drinks, and guided by Luis set out to visit the
house which our friend had lent us for the summer. Habits of cleanliness
were shown in the streets. Young girls were hard at work, each
industriously brushing the dust from the sidewalk in front of her house,
even though that sidewalk were itself of dried mud. To us it seemed
that the story was being repeated of the old woman who tried to besom
the tide out of her front door.
Many of the householders had spread their sphere of influence even
beyond the sidewalk, and had soaked their patch of road, turning the
dust into viscous mud. The pavements were already beginning to be
encumbered by chairs, and by groups of people sitting out in the cooling
day.
The Paseo de Corveras is a one-sided street darkened by tall trees. On
the other side stretch maize fields surrounding a small farm, and
walled-in gardens filled with tall feathery date palms. The dates were
already hanging in orange clusters beneath the sprouting heads of
fronds. Luis took us to the house of Antonio Garrigos, who lived at No.
12.
Antonio was a handsome man of pure Spanish type, giving an impression of
nervous vitality. He produced three keys, each of about a pound in
weight and large as any key of a theatrical gaoler. The house key was of
monstrous size, and he assured us that we would have to carry it with us
wherever we went. Our friend's apartment at No. 26 was on the first
floor and spread right across two humbler dwellings below. It was cool
and roomy, filled with specimens of Spanish draperies, pottery and
furniture, which he had collected during several years in Spain. At the
back was a kitchen, with large earthen vessels for water, and Spanish
grids for cooking on charcoal. The bed was big for one, but very small
for two, so we suggested taking off the spring mattress and laying
planks in its place. Antonio at once said that to-morrow he would get
the planks in time for the night.
Then, feeling very tired but thoroughly pleased with our prospective
house, and with the new acquaintances we had found, we walked back to
the hotel, had a supper as liberal as the lunch, and went to bed.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: "Little brother, alms which God Himself will repay."]
[Footnote 6: "God will help you."]