and remembers with pleasure that he belongs to a good old county family.
He has changed his address from Bedford Square to South Kensington, and
has been educated at a Public School and at a University. Young, tall
and fair-haired, there is nothing to suggest that he will ever have that
inelegant paunch which prevented the father, even in his loftiest
moments of moral indignation, from being dignified. Of course he is a
soldier, for the army is still the only profession for a gentleman, and
England's hero is that above all things. His morals are unexceptional,
since to the ten commandments of Moses he has added the decalogue of
good form. His clothes, whether he wears a Norfolk jacket or a frock
coat, fit to perfection. He is a good shot, a daring rider, a
serviceable cricketer. His heart beats with simple emotions, he will
ever cheer at the sight of the Union Jack, and the strains of _Rule
Britannia_ bring patriotic tears to his eyes. Of late, (like myself,) he
has become an Imperialist. His intentions are always strictly
honourable, and he would not kiss the tip of a woman's fingers except
Hymen gave him the strictest rights to do so. If he became enamoured of
a lady with whom such tender sentiments should not be harboured, he
would invariably remember his duty at the psychological moment, and with
many moving expressions renounce her: in fact he is a devil at
renouncing women. I wonder it flatters them.
Contrast with this pattern of excellence, eminently praiseworthy if
somewhat dull, Don Juan Tenorio, who stands in exactly the same relation
to the Andalusians as does John Bull to the English. He is a worthless,
heartless creature, given over to the pursuit of emotion. The main
lines of the story are well known. The legend, so far as Seville is
concerned, (industrious persons have found analogues throughout the
world,) appears to be founded on fact. There actually lived a Comendador
de Calatrava who was killed by Don Juan after the abduction of his
daughter. The perfect amorist, according to the _Cronica de Sevilla_,
was then inveigled into the church where lay his enemy and assassinated
by the Franciscans, who spread the pious fiction that the image of his
victim, descending from its pedestal, had itself exacted vengeance. It
was an unfortunate invention, for the catastrophe has proved a
stumbling-block to all that have dealt with the subject. The Spaniards
of Molina's day may not have minded the clumsy _deus ex machina_, but
later writers have been able to make nothing of it. In Molière's play,
for instance, the grotesque statue is absurdly inapposite, for his Don
Juan is a wit and a cynic, a courtier of Louis XIV., with whose sins
avenging gods are out of all proportion. Love for him is an intellectual
exercise and a pastime. 'Constancy,' he says, 'is only good for fools.
We owe ourselves to pretty women in general, and the mere fact of having
met one does not absolve us from our duty to others. The birth of
passion has an inexplicable charm, and the pleasure of love is in
variety.' And Zorilla, whose version is the most poetic of them all, has
succeeded in giving only a ridiculous exhibition of waxworks.
But the monk, Tirso de Molina, who was the first to apply literary form
to the legend, alone gives the character in its primitive simplicity. He
drew the men of his time; and his compatriots, recognising themselves,
have made the work immortal. For Spain, at all events, the type has been
irrevocably fixed. Don Juan Tenorio was indeed a Spaniard of his age, a
man of turbulent instincts, with a love of adventure and a fine contempt
for danger, of an overwhelming pride; careful of his own honour, and
careless of that of others. He looked upon every woman as lawful prey
and hesitated at neither perjury nor violence to gain his ends; despair
and tears left him indifferent. Love for him was purely carnal, with
nothing of the timid flame of pastoral romance, nor of the chivalrous
and metaphysic passion of Provence; it was a fierce, consuming fire
which quickly burnt itself out. He was a vulgar and unoriginal seducer
who stole favours in the dark by pretending to be the lady's chosen
lover, or induced guileless maids to trust him under promise of
marriage, then rode away as fast as his horse could carry him. The
monotony of his methods and their success are an outrage to the
intelligence of the sex. But for all his scoffing he remained a true
Catholic, devoutly believing that the day would come when he must
account for his acts; and he proposed, when too old to commit more sins,
to repent and make his peace with the Almighty.
It is significant that the Andalusians have thus chosen Don Juan
Tenorio, for he is an abstract, with the lines somewhat subdued by the
advance of civilisation, of the national character. For them his vices,
his treachery, his heartlessness, have nothing repellent; nor does his
inconstancy rob him of feminine sympathy. He is, indeed, a far greater
favourite with the ladies than John Bull. The Englishman they respect,
they know he will make a good husband and a model father; but he is too
monogamous to arouse enthusiasm.
XVI
[Sidenote: Women of Andalusia]
It is meet and just that the traveller who desires a closer acquaintance
with the country wherein he sojourns than is obtained by the Cockney
tripper, should fall in love. The advantages of this proceeding are
manifold and obvious. He will acquire the language with a more rapid
facility; he will look upon the land with greater sympathy and hence
with sharper insight; and little particularities of life will become
known to him, which to the dreary creature who surveys a strange world
from the portico of an expensive hotel, must necessarily lie hid. If I
personally did not arrive at that delectable condition the fault is with
the immortal gods rather than with myself; for in my eagerness to learn
the gorgeous tongue of Calderon and of Cervantes, I placed myself
purposely in circumstances where I thought the darts of young Cupid
could never fail to miss me. But finally I was reduced to Ollendorf's
Grammar. However, these are biographical details of interest to none but
myself; they are merely to serve as preface for certain observations
upon the women whom the traveller in the evening sees hurrying through
the Sierpes on their way home.
Human beauty is the most arbitrary of things, and the Englishman,
accustomed to the classic type of his own countrywomen, will at first
perhaps be somewhat disappointed with the excellence of Spain. It
consists but seldom in any regularity of feature, for their appeal is to
the amorist rather than to the sculptor in marble. Their red lips carry
suggestions of burning kisses, so that his heart must be hard indeed who
does not feel some flutterings at their aspect. The teeth are small,
very white, regular. Face and body, indeed, are but the expression of a
passionate nature.
But when I write of Spanish women I think of you, Rosarito; I find
suddenly that it is no impersonal creature that fills my mind, but
you--you! When I state solemnly that their greatest beauty lies in their
hair and eyes, it is of you I think; it is your dark eyes that were
lustrous, soft as velvet, caressing sometimes, and sometimes sparkling
with fiery glances. (Alas! that I can find but hackneyed phrases to
describe those heart-disturbers!) And when I say that the eyebrows of a
Spanish woman are not often so delicately pencilled as with many an
English girl, I remember that yours were thick; and the luxuriance gave
you a certain tropical and savage charm. And your hair was plentiful and
curling, intensely black; I believe it was your greatest care in life.
Don't you remember how often you explained to me that nothing was so
harmful as to brush it, and how proud you were that it hung in glorious
locks to your very knees?
Hardly any girl in Seville is too poor to have a _peinadora_ to do her
hair; and these women go from house to house, combing and arranging the
coiffure for such infinitesimal sums as half a _real_, which is little
more than a penny.
Again I try to be impersonal. The complexion ranges through every
quality from dark olive to pearly white; but yours, Rosarito, was like
the very finest ivory, a perfect miracle of delicacy and brilliance; and
the blood in the cheeks shone through with a rich, soft red. I used to
think it was a colour by itself, not to be found on palettes, the
carnation of your cheeks, Rosarito. And none could walk with such
graceful dignity as you; it was a pleasure to watch your perfect ease,
your self-command. Your feet, I think, were somewhat long; but your
hands were wonderful, very small, admirably modelled, with little
tapering fingers, and the most adorable filbert nails. Don't you
remember how I used to look at them, and turn them over and discuss them
point by point? And if ever I kissed their soft, warm palms, (I think it
possible, though I have no vivid recollections,) remember that I was
twenty-three; and it was certainly an appropriate gesture in the little
comedy which to our mutual entertainment we played so gravely.
Now, as I write, my heart goes pit-a-pat, thinking of you, Rosarito; and
I'm sure that if we had over again that charming time, I should fall
head over ears in love. Oh, you know we were both fibbing when we vowed
we adored one another; I am a romancer by profession, and you by nature.
We parted joyously, and you had the grace not to force a tear, and
neither of our hearts was broken. Where are you now, I wonder; and do
you ever think of me?
* * *
The whole chapter of Andalusian beauty is unfolded in the tobacco
factory at Seville. Six thousand women work there, at little tables
placed by the columns which uphold the roof; they are of all ages, of
all types; plain, pretty, commonplace, beautiful; and ten, perhaps, are
lovely. The gipsies are disappointing, not so comely as the pure
Spaniards; and they attract only by the sphinx-like mystery of their
copper-coloured skin, by their hard, unfathomable eyes.
The Sevillans are perhaps inclined to stoutness, but that is a charm in
their lover's sight, and often have a little down on the upper lip, than
which, when it amounts to no more than a shadow, nothing can be more
enchanting. They look with malicious eyes as you saunter through room
after room in the factory; it is quite an experience to run the gauntlet
of their numerous tongues, making uncomplimentary remarks about your
person, sometimes to your embarrassment offering you the carnation from
their hair, or other things. Their clothes are suspended to the pillars,
and their costume in summer is more adapted for coolness than for the
inspection of decorous foreigners. They may bring with them babies, and
many a girl will have a cradle by her side, which she rocks with one
foot as her fingers work nimbly at the cigarettes.
They are very oriental, these women with voluptuous forms; they have no
education, and with all their charm are unutterably stupid; they do not
read, and find even newspapers tiresome! Those whose circumstances do
not force them to work for their living, love nothing better than to lie
for long hours on a sofa, neither talking nor thinking, in easy gowns,
untrammelled by tight-fitting things. In the morning they put on a
_mantilla_ and go to mass, and besides, except to pay a polite visit on
a friend or to drive in the Paseo, hardly leave the house. They are
content with the simplest life. They adore their children, and willingly
devote themselves entirely to them; they seem never to be bored.
For them the days must come and go without distinction. Their fleeting
beauty leaves them imperceptibly; they grow fat, they grow thin,
wrinkled, and gaunt; the years pass and their life proceeds without
change. They do not think, they do not live: they merely exist, and they
die, and that is the end of it. I suppose they are as happy as any one
else. After all, taking it from one point of view, it matters very
little what sort of life one leads, there are so many people in the
world, such millions have come and gone, such millions will come and go.
If an individual makes no use of his hour what does it signify? He is
only one among countless hordes. In the existence of these handsome
creatures, so passionate and yet so apathetic, there are no particular
pleasures beside the simple joys of sense, but on the other hand, beyond
the inevitable separations of death, there are no outstanding griefs.
They propagate their species, and that, perhaps, is the only quite
certain duty that human beings have.
XVII
[Sidenote: The Dance]
Cervantes said that there was never born a Spanish woman but she was
made to dance; and he might have added that in the South, at all events,
most men share the enviable faculty. The dance is one of the most
characteristic features of Andalusia, and as an amusement rivals in
popularity even the bull-fight. The Sevillans dance on every possible
occasion, and nothing pleases them more than the dexterity of
professionals. Before a company has been assembled half an hour some one
is bound to suggest that a couple should show their skill; room is
quickly made, the table pushed against the wall, the chairs drawn back,
and they begin. Even when men are alone in a tavern, drinking wine, two
of them will often enough stand up to tread a _seguidilla_. On a rainy
day it is the entertainment that naturally recommends itself.
Riding through the villages round Seville on Sundays it delighted me to
see little groups making a circle about the house doors, in the middle
of which were dancing two girls in bright-coloured clothes, with roses
in their hair. A man seated on a broken chair was twanging a guitar, the
surrounders beat their hands in time and the dancers made music with
their castanets. Sometimes on a feast-day I came across a little band,
arrayed in all its best, that had come into the country for an
afternoon's diversion, and sat on the grass in the shade of summer or in
the wintry sun. Whenever Andalusians mean to make merry some one will
certainly bring a guitar, or if not the girls have their castanets; and
though even these are wanting and no one can be induced to sing, a
rhythmical clapping of hands will be sufficient accompaniment, and the
performers will snap their fingers in lieu of castanets.
It is charming then to see the girls urge one another to dance; each
vows with much dramatic gesture that she cannot, calling the Blessed
Virgin to witness that she has strained her ankle and has a shocking
cold. But some youth springs up and volunteers, inviting a particular
damsel to join him. She is pushed forward, and the couple take their
places. The man carefully puts down his cigarette, jams his
broad-brimmed hat on his head, buttons his short coat and arches his
back! The spectators cry: '_Ole!_' The girl passes an arranging hand
over her hair. The measure begins. The pair stand opposite one another,
a yard or so distant, and foot it in accordance with one another's
motions. It is not a thing of complicated steps, but, as one might
expect from its Moorish origin, of movements of the body. With much
graceful swaying from side to side the executants approach and retire,
and at the middle of the dance change positions. It finishes with a
great clapping of hands, the maiden sinks down among her friends and
begins violently to fan herself, while her partner, with a great
affectation of nonchalance, takes a seat and relights his cigarette.
And in the music-halls the national dances are, with the national songs,
the principal attraction. Seville possesses but one of these
establishments; it is a queer place, merely the _patio_ of a private
house, with a stage at one end, in which chairs and tables have been
placed. On holiday nights it is crammed with students, with countrymen
and artisans, with the general riff-raff of the town, and with women of
no particular reputation. Now and then appears a gang of soldiers,
giving a peculiar note with the uniformity of their brown holland suits;
and occasionally a couple of British sailors come sauntering in with
fine self-assurance, their fair hair and red cheeks contrasting with the
general swartness. You pay no entrance money, but your refreshment costs
a _real_--which is twopence ha'penny; and for that you may enjoy not
only a cup of coffee or a glass of manzanilla, but an evening's
entertainment. As the night wears on the heat is oven-like, and the air
is thick and grey with the smoke of countless cigarettes.
The performance consists of three 'turns' only, and these are repeated
every hour. The company boasts generally of a male singer, a female
singer, and of the _corps de ballet_, which is made up of six persons.
Spain is the stronghold of the out-of-date, and I suppose it alone
preserves the stiff muslin ballet-skirts which delighted our fathers. To
see half-a-dozen dancers thus attired in a remote Andalusian music-hall
is so entirely unexpected that it quite takes the breath away. But by
the time the traveller reaches Seville he must be used to disillusion,
and he must be ingenuous indeed if he expects the Spaniards to have
preserved their national costume for the most national of their
pastimes. Yet the dances are still Spanish; and even if the pianoforte
has ousted the guitar, the castanets give, notwithstanding, a
characteristic note which the aggressive muslin and the pink,
ill-fitting tights cannot entirely destroy.
* * *
But I remember one dancer who was really a great artist. She was
ill-favoured, of middle age, thin; but every part of her was imbued with
grace, expressive, from the tips of her toes to the tips of her fingers.
The demands of the public sometimes forced upon her odious
ballet-skirts, sometimes she wasted her talent on the futilities of
skirt-dancing; but chiefly she loved the national measures, and her
phenomenal leanness made her only comfortable in the national dress. She
travelled from place to place in Spain with another woman whom she had
taught to dance, and whose beauty she used cleverly as a foil to her own
uncomeliness; and so wasted herself in these low resorts, earning hardly
sufficient to keep body and soul together. I wish I could remember her
name.
When she began to dance you forgot her ugliness; her gaunt arms gained
shape, her face was transfigured, her dark eyes flashed, and her mouth
and smile said a thousand eloquent things. Even the nape of her neck,
which in most women has no significance, with her was expressive. A
consummate actress, she exhibited all her skill in the _bolero_, which
represents a courtship; she threw aside the castanets and wrapped
herself in a _mantilla_, while her companion, dressed as a man, was
hidden in a _capa_. The two passed one another, he trying to see the
lady's face, which she averted, but not too strenuously; he pursued, she
fled, but not too rapidly. Dropping his cloak, the lover attacked with
greater warmth, while alternately she repelled and lured him on. At last
she too cast away the _mantilla_. They seized the castanets and danced
round one another with all manner of graceful and complicated
evolutions, making love, quarrelling, pouting, exhibiting every variety
of emotion. The dance grew more passionate, the steps flew faster, till
at last, with the music, both stopped suddenly dead still. This abrupt
cessation is one of the points most appreciated by a Spanish audience.
'_Ole!_' they cry,'_bien parado!_'
But when, unhampered by a partner, this nameless, exquisite dancer gave
full play to her imagination, there was no end to the wildness of her
fancy, to the intricacy and elaboration of her measures, to the gay
audacity of her movements. She performed a hundred feats, each more
difficult than the other--and all impossible to describe.
* * *
Then, between Christmas and Lent, at midnight on Saturdays and Sundays,
the tables and the chairs are cleared away for the masked ball; and you
will see the latest mode of Spanish dance. The women are of the lowest
possible class; some, with a kind of savage irony, disguised as nuns,
others in grotesque dominos of their own devising; but most wear
every-day clothes with great shawls draped about them. The men are of a
corresponding station, and through the evening wear their broad-brimmed
hats. On the stage is a brass band, which plays one single tune till
day-break, and to that one single measure is danced--the _habanera_.
In this alone may people take part as in any round dance. The couples
hold one another in the very tightest embrace, the lady clasping her
arms round her partner's neck, while he places both his about her waist.
They go round the room very slowly, immediately behind one another; it
is a kind of straight polka, with a peculiar, rhythmic swaying of the
body; the feet are not lifted off the floor, and you do not turn at all.
The highest gravity is preserved throughout, and the whole performance
is--well, very oriental.
XVIII
[Sidenote: A Feast Day]
I arrived in Seville on the Eve of the Immaculate Conception. All day
people had been preparing to celebrate the feast, decorating their
houses with great banners of blue and white; and at night the silent,
narrow streets had a strange appearance, for in every window were
lighted candles, throwing around them a white, unusual glare; they
looked a little like the souls of infants dead. All day the bells of a
hundred churches had been ringing, half drowned by the rolling peals of
the Giralda.
It had been announced that the archbishop would himself officiate at the
High Mass in the Blessed Virgin's honour; and early in the morning the
cathedral steps were crowded with black-robed women, making their way to
the great sacristy where was to be held the service. I joined the
throng, and entering through the darkness of the porch, was almost
blinded by the brilliant altar, upon which stood a life-sized image of
the Virgin, surrounded by a huge aureole, with great bishops, all of
silver, on either side. It was ablaze with the light of many candles, so
that the nave was thrown into deep shadow, and the kneeling women were
scarcely visible.
The canons in the choir listlessly droned their prayers. At last the
organ burst forth, and a long procession slowly came into the chapel,
priests in white and blue, the colours of the Virgin, four bishops in
mitres, the archbishop with his golden crozier; and preceding them all,
in odd contrast, the beadle in black, with a dark periwig, bearing a
silver staff. From the choir in due order they returned to the altar,
headed this time by three pairs of acolytes, bearing great silver
candlesticks, and by incense-burners, that filled the church with rich
perfume.
When the Mass was finished, a young dark man in copious robes of violet
ascended the pulpit and muttered a text. He waited an instant to collect
himself, looking at the congregation; then turning to the altar began a
passionate song of praise to the Blessed Virgin, unsoiled by original
sin. He described her as in a hundred pictures the great painter of the
Immaculate Conception has portrayed her--a young and graceful maid,
clothed in a snowy gown of ample folds, with an azure cloak, a maid
mysteriously pure; her hair, floating on the shoulders in luxurious
ringlets, was an aureole more glorious than the silver rays which
surrounded the great image; her dark eyes, with their languid lashes,
her mouth, with the red lips, expressed a beautiful and immaculate
virtue. It might have been some earthly woman of whom the priest spoke,
one of those Andalusians that knelt below him, flashing quick glances at
the gallant who negligently leaned against a pillar.
The archbishop sat on his golden throne--a thin, small man with a
wrinkled face, with dead and listless eyes; in his gorgeous vestments
he looked hardly human, he seemed a puppet, sitting stilly. At the end
of the sermon he went back to the altar, and in his low, broken voice
read the prayers. And then turning towards the great congregation he
gave the plenary absolution, for which the Pope's Bull had been read
from the pulpit steps.
* * *
In the afternoon, when the sun was going down behind the Guadalquivir,
over the plain, I went again to the cathedral. The canons in the choir
still droned their chant in praise of the Blessed Virgin, and in the
greater darkness the altar shone more magnificently. The same procession
filed through the nave, some priests were in black, some in violet, some
in the Virgin's colours; but this time the archbishop wore gorgeous
robes of scarlet, and as he knelt at the altar his train spread to the
chancel steps. From the side appeared ten boys and knelt before the
altar, and stood in two lines facing one another. They were dressed like
pages of the seventeenth century, with white stockings and breeches, and
a doublet of blue and silver, holding in their hands hats with long
feathers. The archbishop, kneeling in front of the throne, buried his
face in his hands.
A soft melody, played by violins and 'cellos, broke the silence, and
presently the ten pages began to sing: