The journey from Granada to Valencia, made all _de un tiron_ (at one
breath), as they say in Spain, is one of those recreations in which a
rational man indulges only once in his life. From Granada to Menjibar,
a village on the left bank of the Guadalquivir, between Jaen and
Andujar, is a night's ride by diligence; from Menjibar to the Alcazar
de San Juan is a half-day's journey by railway in an uncurtained
carriage, through a plain as bare as the palm of one's hand, under
a blazing sun; and from the Alcazar de San Juan to Valencia, taking
account of an entire evening spent in the station of the Alcazar, makes
another night and another morning before one reaches the longed-for
city at noon, where Nature, as Emile Praga would say, is horrified at
the dreadful idea that there are still four months of summer.
But it must be said that the country through which one passes is
so beautiful from beginning to the end that if one were capable of
appreciation when one is dead with sleep and finds one's self turning
into water by reason of the heat, one would go into ecstasies a
thousand times. It is a journey of unexpected landscapes, sudden
vistas, remarkable contrasts, theatrical effects of Nature, so to
speak--marvellous and fantastic transformations, which leave in the
mind an indescribable, vague illusion of having passed not through a
part of Spain, but along an entire meridian of the earth across the
most dissimilar countries. From the _vega_ of Granada, which you cross
in the moonlight, almost opening a way among the groves and gardens,
in the midst of a luxuriant vegetation that seems to crowd around
you like a tossing sea, ready to overflow and engulf you with its
billows of verdure,--from this you emerge into the midst of ragged
and precipitous mountains, where not a trace of human habitation is
to be seen; you graze the edge of precipices, wind along the banks of
mountain-torrents, run along at the bottom of the ravines, and seem to
be lost in a rocky labyrinth. Then you come out a second time among
the green hills and flowery fields of upper Andalusia, and then, all
suddenly, the fields and hills disappear and you find yourself in the
midst of the rocky mountains of the Sierra Morena, that hang over
your head from every direction and close the horizon all around like
the walls of an immense abyss. You leave the Sierra Morena, and the
desert plains of La Mancha stretch before you; you leave La Mancha and
advance through the flowery plain of Almansa, varied by every sort of
cultivation, presenting the appearance of a vast carpet of checkered
pattern colored in all the shades of green that can be found upon the
pallet of a landscape-painter. And, finally, the plain of Almansa opens
into a delightful oasis, a land blest of God, a true earthly paradise,
the kingdom of Valencia, from whose boundaries, even to the city
itself, you pass through gardens, vineyards, fragrant orange-groves,
white villas encircled by terraces, cheerful, brightly-colored
villages, clusters, avenues, and groves of palms, pomegranates,
aloes, and sugar-canes, interminable hedges of Indian fig, long
chains of low hills, and conical mounds cultivated as kitchen-gardens
and flower-beds, laid out with minute care from top to bottom, and
variegated like great bunches of grass and flowers; and everywhere a
vigorous vegetation which hides every bare spot, covers every height,
clothes every projection, climbs, falls, trails along, marches forward,
overflows, intertwines, shuts off the view, impedes the road, dazzles
with its verdure, wearies with its beauty, confounds with its caprices
and its frolics, and produces an effect as of a sudden parting of the
earth raised to fever heat by the fires of a secret volcano.
The first building which meets the eye on entering Valencia is an
immense bull-ring situated to the right of the railway. The building
consists of four orders of superimposed arches rising on stout
pilasters, all of brick, and in the distance resembling the Colosseum.
It is the bull-ring where on the fourth of September, 1871, King
Amadeus, in the presence of thousands of spectators, shook hands with
Tato, the celebrated one-legged _torero_, who as director of the
spectacle had asked permission to render his homage in the royal box.
Valencia is full of mementos of the duke d'Aosta. The sacristan of the
cathedral has in his possession a gold chronometer bearing the duke's
initials in diamonds, with a chain of pearls, which was presented by
him when he went to pray in the chapel of Our Lady of the Desolate.
In the hospice of the same name the poor remember that one day they
received their daily bread from his hand. In the mosaic workshop of
one Nolla they preserve two bricks, upon one of which he cut his own
name with his sword, and upon the other the name of the queen. In the
Plaza di Tetuan the people point out the house of Count di Cervellon,
where he was entertained; it is the same house in which Ferdinand
VII. signed the decrees annulling the constitution in 1814, in which
Queen Christina abdicated the throne in 1840, in which Queen Isabella
spent some days in 1858. In short, there is not a corner of the city
of which it cannot be said, Here he shook hands with a working-man,
here he visited a factory, there he passed on foot far from his suite,
surrounded by a crowd, trustful, serene, and smiling.
It was in Valencia, since I am speaking of the duke d'Aosta,--it was
in the city of Valencia that a little girl of five years in reciting
some verses touched upon that terrible subject of a _foreign king_
with probably the noblest and most considerate words spoken in Spain
for many years previous to that time--words which, if all Spain had
remembered and pondered then, would perhaps have spared her many of
those calamities which have befallen her, and others which still
threaten; words which perhaps one day some Spaniard may repeat with
a sigh, and which already at this time draw from events a marvellous
light of truth and beauty. And, since these verses are graceful and
simple, I transcribe them here. The poem is entitled "God and the
King," and runs as follows:
"Dios, en todo soberano,
Creó un dia á los mortales,
Y á todos nos hizo iguales
Con su poderosa mano.
"No reconoció Naciones
Ni colores ni matices?
Y en ver los hombres felices
Cifró sus aspiraciones.
"El Rey, che su imágen es,
Su bondad debe imitar
Y el pueblo no ha de indagar
Si es aleman ó francés.
"Porqué con ceño iracundo
Rechazarle siendo bueno?
Un Rey de bondades lleno
Tiene por su patria el mundo.
"Vino de nacion estraña
Cárlos Quinto emperador,
Y conquistó su valor
Mil laureles para España.
"Y es un recuerdo glorioso
Aunque en guerra cimentado,
El venturoso reinado
De Felipe el Animoso.
"Hoy el tercero sois vos
Nacido en estraño suelo
Que viene á ver nuestro cielo
Puro destello de Dios.
"Al rayo de nuestro sol
Sed bueno, justo y leal,
Que á un Rey bueno y liberal
Adora el pueblo español.
"Y á vuestra frente el trofeo
Ceñid de perpetua gloria,
Para que diga la historia
--Fué grande el Rey Amadeo."
"God, Ruler over all, created mortals one day, and made all equal
with His mighty hand. He recognized neither nations nor colors nor
divisions, and to behold men happy was His desire. The king, who is His
image, ought to imitate His goodness, and the people have no need to
ask whether he be German or French. Why, then, with angry frown repulse
him if he be good? A king abounding in good deeds holds the world as
his country. Charles V., the emperor, came from a foreign nation, and
by his valor won a thousand laurels for Spain. And the fortunate reign
of Philip the Courageous is a glorious memory even though founded upon
war.
"To-day a third king rules you born on a foreign soil, who comes to
look upon our sky, a clear spark of God. His love is true and just and
loyal to the light of our sun, and this is a good and liberal king
Spanish people adore. And around your brows you shall wear the trophy
of perpetual glory upon which history shall write, 'Great was King
Amadeus.'"
Oh, poor little girl! how many wise things you have said! and how many
foolish things others have done!
The city of Valencia, if one enters it with one's mind full of the
ballads in which the poets sang of its marvels, does not seem to
correspond to the lovely image formed of it; neither, on the other
hand, does it offer that sinister appearance for which one is prepared
if one considers its just fame as a turbulent, warlike city, the
fomenter of civil strife--a city prouder of the smell of its powder
than of the fragrance of its orange-groves. It is a city built in the
midst of a vast flowery plain on the right bank of the Guadalquivir,
which separates it from the suburbs, a little way from the roadstead
which serves as a port, and consists all of tortuous streets lined with
high, ungainly, many-colored houses, and on this account less pleasing
in appearance than the streets of the Andalusian cities, and entirely
devoid of that evasive Oriental grace which so strangely stirs one's
fancy. Along the left bank of the river extends a magnificent promenade
formed of majestic avenues and beautiful gardens. These one reaches by
going out of the city through the gate of the Cid, a structure flanked
by two great embattled towers named after the hero because he passed
through it in 1094 after he had expelled the Moors from Valencia. The
cathedral, built upon the spot where stood a temple of Diana in Roman
times, then a church of San Salvador in the time of the Goths, then
a mosque in Moorish times, afterward converted into a church by the
Cid, changed a second time into a mosque by the Moors in 1101, and
for the third time into a church by King Don Jayme after the final
overthrow of the invaders, is a vast structure, exceedingly rich in
ornaments and treasures, but it cannot bear comparison with the greater
number of the other Spanish cathedrals. There are a few palaces worth
seeing, besides the palace of the Audiencia, a beautiful monument of
the sixteenth century in which the Cortes of the kingdom of Valencia
assembled; the _Casa de Ayuntamiento_, built between the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, in which are preserved the sword of Don Jayme, the
keys of the city, and the banner of the Moors; and, above all, _the
Lonja_--the Bourse of the merchants--notable for its celebrated hall
consisting of three great naves divided by twenty-four spiral columns,
above which curve the light arches of the vaulted roof in bold lines,
the architecture imparting to the eye a pleasing impression of gayety
and harmony. And, finally, there is the art-gallery, which is not one
of the least in Spain.
But, to tell the truth, in those few days that I remained at Valencia
waiting for the boat I was more occupied by politics than by art. And
I proved the truth of the words I heard an illustrious Italian say
before I left Italy--one who knew Spain like his his own home: "The
foreigner who lives even for a short time in Spain is drawn little
by little, almost insensibly, to heat his blood and muddle his brain
over politics, as if Spain were his own country or as if the fortunes
of his country were depending upon those of Spain. The passions are
so inflamed, the struggle is so furious, and in this struggle there
is always so clearly at stake the future, the safety, and the life of
the nation, that it is impossible for any one with the least tinge
of the Latin blood in his imagination and his system to remain an
indifferent spectator. You must needs grow excited, speak at party
meetings, take the elections seriously, mingle with the crowd at the
political demonstrations, break with your friends, form a clique of
those who think as you think--make, in a word, a Spaniard of yourself,
even to the whites of your eyes. And gradually, as you become Spanish,
you forget Europe, as if it were at the antipodes, and end in seeing
nothing beyond Spain, as if you were governing it, and as if all its
interests were in your hands."
Such is the case, and this was my experience. In those few days the
Conservative ministry was shipwrecked and the Radicals had the wind
behind them. Spain was all in a ferment; governors, generals, officials
of all grades and of all administrations fell; a crowd of parvenus
burst into the offices of the ministry with cries of joy: Zorilla was
to inaugurate a new era of prosperity and peace; Don Amadeus had had an
inspiration from heaven; liberty had conquered; Spain was saved. And
I, as I listened to the band playing in front of the new governor's
mansion under a clear starry sky in the midst of a joyous crowd,--I too
had a ray of hope that the throne of Don Amadeus might finally extend
its roots, and reproached myself for being too prone to predict evil.
And that comedy which Zorilla played at his villa when he would by no
means accept the presidency of the ministry, and sent back his friends
and the members of the deputation, and finally, tired of continually
saying no, fell into a swoon on saying yes, this, I say, gave me at
the time a high opinion of the firmness of his character and led me to
augur happily for the new government. And I said to myself that it was
a sin to leave Spain just when the horizon was clearing and the royal
palace of Madrid was tinted rose-color. And I had already considered
the plan of returning to Madrid that I might have the satisfaction
of sending some consoling news to Italy, and so be pardoned for the
imprudence of sending unvarnished accounts of the situation up to that
time. And I repeated the verses of Prati:
"Oh qual destin t'aspetta
Aquila giovenetta!"
(Oh what a destiny awaits thee, young eagle!) And, save a little
bombast in the appellation, it seemed to me that they contained a
prophecy, and I imagined meeting the poet in the Piazza Colonna at
Rome and running toward him to offer my congratulations and press his
hand....
The most beautiful sight in Valencia is the market. The Valencian
peasants are the most artistic and bizarre in their dress of all the
peasants of Spain. To cut a good figure in a group of maskers at one
of our masquerades they need only enter the theatre dressed as they
would be on a festival or market-day in the streets of Valencia and
along the country roads. On first seeing them dressed in this style,
one laughs, and cannot in any way be brought to believe that they are
Spanish peasants. They have an indescribable air of Greeks, Bedouins,
buffoons, tightrope-walkers, women partly undressed on their way to
bed, the silent characters of a play not quite ready to make their
appearance, or facetious people who wish to make themselves generally
ridiculous. They wear a full white shirt that takes the place of a
jacket; a parti-colored velvet waistcoat open at the breast; a pair of
zouave linen breeches which do not reach the knee, looking like drawers
and standing out like the skirts of a ballet-dancer; a red or blue sash
around the waist; a sort of embroidered white woollen stockings that
leave the knee bare; a pair of corded sandals like those of the Catalan
peasants; and on their heads, which are almost all shaved like those
of the Chinese, they wear a handkerchief, red, sky-blue, yellow, or
white, bound around like a cornucopia, and knotted at the temples or
at the nape of the neck. They sometimes wear small velvet hats similar
in shape to those worn in the other provinces of Spain. When they go
into the city they nearly all carry around their shoulders or on their
arms, now like a shawl, now like a mantle, or again like a little
cape, a woollen _capa_, long and narrow, in brightly-colored stripes
in which white and red predominate, adorned with fringe and rosettes.
One may easily imagine the appearance presented by a square where there
are gathered some hundreds of men dressed after this fashion: it is a
Carnival scene, a festival, a tumult of colors, that makes one feel as
gay as a band of music; a spectacle at once clownish, pretty, imposing,
and ridiculous, to which the haughty faces and the majestic bearing
which distinguish the Valencian peasants add an air of gravity which
heightens the extraordinary beauty of the scene.
If there is an insolent, lying proverb, it is that old Spanish one
which says, "In Valencia flesh is grass, grass is water, men are
women, and the women nothing." Leaving that part about the flesh and
the grass, which is a pun, the men, especially those of the lower
classes, are tall and robust, and have the bold appearance of the
Catalans and Arragonese, with a livelier and more luminous expression
of the eye; and the women, by the consent of all the Spaniards and
of as many foreigners as have travelled in Spain, are the most
classically beautiful in the country. The Valencians, who know that
the eastern coast of the Peninsula was originally settled by Greeks
and Carthaginians, say, "It is a clear case. The Grecian type of
beauty has lingered here." I do not venture to say yes or no to this
assertion, for to describe the beauty of the women of a city where
one has passed only a few hours would seem to me like a license to be
taken only by the compiler of a "Guide." But one can easily discover
a decided difference between the Andalusian and Valencian types of
beauty. The Valencian is taller, more robust, and fairer, with more
regular features, gentler eyes, and a more matronly walk and carriage.
She does not possess the bewitching air of the Andalusian, which makes
it necessary to bite one's finger as if to subdue the sudden and
alarming insurrection of one's capricious desires at sight of her; but
the Valencian is a woman whom one regards with a feeling of calmer
admiration, and while one looks one says, as La Harpe said of the
Apollo Belvidere, "_Notre tete se releve, notre maintien s'ennoblit_,"
and instead of imagining a little Andalusian house to hide her from the
eyes of the world, one longs for a marble palace to receive the ladies
and cavaliers who will come to render her homage.
If one is to believe the rest of the Spaniards, the Valencian people
are fierce and cruel beyond all imagination. If one wishes to get rid
of an enemy, he finds an obliging man who for a few crowns undertakes
the business with as much indifference as he would accept a commission
to carry a letter to the post. A Valencian peasant who finds that he
has a gun in his hands as he passes an unknown man in a lonely street
says to his companion, "See if I can aim straight?" and takes aim and
fires. This actually occurred not many years ago: I was assured of its
truth. In the cities and villages of Spain the boys and young men of
the people are accustomed to play at being bulls, as they call it. One
takes the place of the bull and does the butting; another, with a sharp
stick under his arm like a lance, climbs on the back of a third, who
represents the horse, and repulses the assaults of the first. Once a
band of young Valencians thought they would introduce some innovations
into this sport, and so make it seem a little more realistic and afford
the spectators and the participants a little more amusement than the
customary way of playing it; and the innovations were to substitute
for the stick a long sharp-pointed knife, one of those formidable
_navajas_ that we saw at Seville, and to give the man who took the part
of the bull two other shorter knives, which, fastened firmly on either
side of his head, answered the purpose of horns. It seems incredible,
but it is true. They played with the knives, shed a sea of blood,
several were killed, some were mortally wounded, and others badly hurt,
without the game becoming a fight, without the rules of the sport
being transgressed, and without any one raising his voice to end the
slaughter.
I tell these things as they were told to me, although I am far from
believing all that is said against the Valencians; but it is certain
that at Valencia the public safety, if not a myth, as our papers
poetically say in speaking of Romagna and Sicily, is certainly not the
first of the good things which one enjoys after the blessing of life. I
was persuaded of this fact the first evening of my stay in the city. I
did not know the way to the port, but thought I was near it, and asked
a shop-woman which way I should take. She uttered a cry of astonishment:
"Do you wish to go to the port, _caballero_?"
"Yes."
"_Ave Maria purissima!_ to the port at this hour?"
And she turned toward a group of women who were standing by the door,
and said to them in the Valencian dialect, "Women, do you answer for
me: this gentleman is asking me the way to the port!"