"All that was gracious was bestowed by the Virgin, and she was
the giver of all that human creatures could ask for. God
frowned, while she smiled; God chastised, but she forgave;
this last notion was by no means a strange one. It is accepted
with almost absolute faith among the laboring classes of the
rural parts of Spain."--GALDOS: _Marianela_.
Holy week throngs Seville to overflowing. The devout no longer scourge
themselves in public, sprinkling the pavements with their blood, but
Spaniards flock from all Andalusia, from Madrid, and even from the
northern provinces to the sunny city on the storied Guadalquivir.
Hotel charges run from twelve dollars a day up to incredible figures;
a mere bed in a lodging house costs its three dollars, four dollars,
or five dollars a night, and fortunate are those who enjoy the
hospitality of a private home.
The ceremonies opened Sunday morning with the procession of palms. We
had been told by our cathedral guide the day before that this
procession would take place at seven or half-past seven at the latest,
and had asked the maid to call us at half-past six. As the chiming
bells should have warned us, her knock was an hour tardy, but when,
breakfastless and eager, we reached the cathedral a few minutes after
eight, there was as yet no sign of a procession. Mass was being said
in the Sagrario and in several chapels, and the morning light poured
in through the rich-colored windows upon groups of kneeling figures
before every shrine. The women wore black mantillas, for, although
this most graceful of headdresses is losing credit on the fashionable
promenades of Seville, and is almost never seen in open carriages,
Holy Week demands it of all the faithful.
We asked a white-robed young chorister when the procession would form.
He answered with encouraging precision, "In twenty minutes." We roamed
about for a half hour or more through those majestic spaces, beneath
those soaring arches, aspiration wrought in stone, until by chance in
that shifting multitude we came face to face with our guide of the day
before. We asked how soon the procession would form. He said, "In
twenty minutes," and we went home for coffee.
When we returned the procession was streaming out of the cathedral
into the street of the _Gran Capitan_. It was simple and all the more
attractive for that simplicity. The colors of standards and vestments
were mainly purple and gold, and the long, yellow fronds of palm,
blown by the fresh breeze from the river, gleamed brighter than the
sheen of candle or of mitre. Turning the corner, the procession, now
facing the beautiful Giralda, entered by the ample Door of Pardon,
still incrusted with its Arabic decorations, into the Court of
Oranges, whose ripe fruit gave new touches of gold to the picture.
Venders of palm were stationed in every sheltered corner, selling
their wares, more than twice the height of a man, at fifteen cents
the frond, while boys, darting about with armfuls of olive, were glad
to take a cent the branch, and not have the best of their leafy store
filched from them by sly old women, more intent, like the rest of us,
on getting a blessing than deserving it.
Through the multitude the glittering palms and purple robes swept on
back into the cathedral, where the silent and remote archbishop, an
image of gold in his splendid apparel, shed his benediction not only
over the proud palms, but over every spray of "little gray leaves,"
like those of Gethsemane. These blessed palms, sprinkled with holy
water and wafting strange fragrances of incense, would be carried home
and kept in myriad balconies all the year through, to protect the
house from "the all-dreaded thunder-stone."
That Sunday afternoon at five o'clock we were leaning out expectantly
from our host's best balcony. With the constant Spanish courtesy, he
had betaken himself, with the children of the household, to a less
commanding balcony below, and his eldest son had considerately
withdrawn, accompanied by his fiancee, to a mere speck of a balcony
above. This left a dozen of us, Spanish, English, and American, to
enjoy as good a view as the city afforded of the processional
tableaux.
The oblong _Plaza de la Constitucion_, the scene in days gone by of
many a tournament, _auto de fe_, and bull-fight, is bounded on one
side by the ornate Renaissance facade of the city hall, and on the
other, in part, by the plain front of the court-house, before which
criminals used to be done to death. Private dwellings, with their
tiers of balconies, one of which had fallen to our happy lot, cross
the wider end of the _plaza_, while the other opens into the brilliant
street of _Las Sierpes_, too narrow for carriages, but boasting the
gayest shop windows and merriest cafes of all the town.
The _plaza_, always animated, fairly rippled with excitement this Palm
Sunday afternoon. The grand stand, erected in front of the city hall,
was filled, although many of the camp-chairs and benches placed in
thick-set rows on the farther side of the line of march were not yet
rented. Thursday and Friday are the days that draw the multitudes. The
crowd was bright with uniforms, most conspicuous being the spruce
white-edged, three-cornered hats and dark-blue, red-faced coats of the
civil guard. Venders of peanuts, peanut candy, macaroons, caramels,
and all manner of _dulces_ swung their baskets from one sweet-toothed
Spaniard to another, while wisely the water-seller went in their wake,
with the artistic yellow jar over his shoulder. One young pedler was
doing a flourishing business in crabs, the customers receiving these
delicacies in outstretched pocket handkerchiefs.
Busy as our eyes were kept, we were able to lend ear to the
explanations of our Spanish friends, who told us that the church
dignitaries, after the procession of palms, took no official part in
the shows of Passion Week, although many of the clergy belonged, as
individuals, to the religious brotherhoods concerned. The church
reserves its street displays for Corpus Christi. These brotherhoods,
societies of ancient origin, and connected with some church or chapel,
own dramatic properties often of great intrinsic value and
considerable antiquity.
For days before Holy Week one may see the members busy in the churches
at the task of arranging groups of sacred figures, vested as richly as
possible in garments of silk and velvet, with ornaments of jewels and
gold, on platforms so heavy that twenty-five men, at the least, are
needed to carry each. These litters are escorted through the principal
streets and squares of the city by their respective societies, each
brotherhood having its distinctive dress. It is customary for every
_cofradia_ to present two pageants--the first in honor of Christ; the
second, and more important, in honor of Mary, to whom chivalrous Spain
has always rendered supreme homage; but sometimes the two tableaux are
combined into one.
After long watching and waiting we saw, far down _Las Sierpes_, the
coming of the first procession. A line of police marched in advance to
clear the road. Then appeared a loosely ordered company of fantastic
figures in blue capes and blue peaked caps, absurdly high and reaching
down to the shoulder, with holes cut for the eyes. From beneath the
capes flowed white frocks, and the gloves and sandals were white.
These "Nazarenes," who looked like a survival of the Carnival,
conducted in silence a litter upon which was erected an image of the
crucified Christ, with face uplifted as if in prayer.
The pageant halted before the doors of the city hall to greet the
Alcalde, who rose from his red velvet chair and bared his head. Men
uncovered, and people stood all along the route, but acclamations were
reserved for Our Lady of the Star. Her attendant troop was dressed
like the preceding, with a star embroidered in white on the shoulder
of the blue tunic. Her litter was ablaze with candles and laden with
flowers; her outsweeping train was upborne by four little pages, and a
brass band followed her with unceasing music.
[Illustration: FILLING THE WATER-JARS]
Sunset colors were in the sky before the procession of the second
brotherhood arrived. At last, far down the _Sierpes_, the dusk was
dotted with the gleam of many tapers, and above these, most impressive
in the dim distance, glimmered a white figure high upon the cross. As
the pageant drew near, waves of incense rolled out upon the air. The
crash of trumpets and deep boom of drums announced that Our Lady of
the Angels was advancing upon the same platform with her Son, for
music in these Passion Week processions is always a sign of the
presence of the Virgin. The brothers of this retinue wore black, save
that their peaked caps were purple.
As twilight gathered, a company of strange dark shapes bore past in
solemn hush the Most Holy Christ of the Waters. The Saviour hung upon
the cross, an angel receiving in a golden cup the blood from his
wounded side. Then her great banner of white and blue heralded the
approach of Our Lady of the Utter Grief, who passed with her
accustomed pomp of lights and music, holding to her eyes a
handkerchief said to be of the most exquisite lace.
Night had fallen when, at eight o'clock, a maid left on vigil called
us all from the dinner table to see the beautiful procession of
white-robed figures conducting Our Father Jesus of the Silence. The
figure of Christ, resplendent in gold and purple, stood before Herod,
whose mail-clad soldiers guarded the prisoner. The Roman costumes were
so well copied, and all the postures and groupings so startlingly
natural, that _vivas_ went up all along the crowded square. As the
banner of the Virgin saluted the Alcalde, her attendants let fall
their long white trains, which swept out quite six yards behind,
reaching from one brother to the next and yielding a wonderfully fine
effect in the slow march. Our Lady of the Bitterness, toward whom
leaned the tender look of St. John, was robed in superb brocade, so
precious that her train, which stood stiffly out behind, was guarded
by a soldier with drawn sword.
This closed the ceremonies of Palm Sunday, and the throng, catching
one from another the blithe, sweet Andalusian melodies, went singing
softly through the darkness on their various ways.
After Palm Sunday a secular quiet fell upon Seville, not broken until
Wednesday. At five o'clock this March afternoon it was still so hot
that few people were rash enough to move about without the shelter of
parasols. Sevillian priests, sombre-robed as they were, sauntered
cheerily across the _plaza_ under sunshades of the gayest hues,
orange, green, azure, red, and usually all at once, but the shamefaced
Englishmen flapped up broad umbrellas of an uncompromising black.
There was a breezy flutter of fans on the grand stand, the
water-sellers had to fill their jars again and again, and the
multitude of smokers, puffing at their paper cigarettes to cool
themselves, really brought on a premature twilight.
It was nearly seven before a score of gendarmes, marching abreast,
cleared the way for the procession. Then appeared, in the usual guise,
some twenty feet apart, two files of those strange shapes, with high,
peaked caps, whose visors descended to the breast, slowly advancing,
with an interval of about six feet from man to man. Their caps and
frocks were black, but the long capes glowed a vivid red. They carried
the customary lighted tapers, so tall that, when rested on the ground,
they reach to the shoulder. Midway between the files walked a
cross-bearer, followed by a Nazarene, who uplifted the standard of
St. Andrew's Cross in red on a black ground. Bearers of other insignia
of the order preceded the great litter, on which, under a golden palm
tree, was represented by life-size effigies the arrest of Christ among
His Disciples, St. Andrew having the foremost place. The second
pageant presented by this brotherhood was accompanied by bevies of
white-robed boys swinging censers and chanting anthems. Then came, in
effulgence of light, the Most Holy Virgin, escorted, as if she were
the earthly Queen of Spain, by a detachment of the Civil Guard, whose
white trimmings and gold belts gleamed in the candle rays.
The remaining three _cofradias_ that had part in the Wednesday
ceremonies exhibited but one pageant each. A troop in black and gold
conducted a Calvary, with Mary Mother and Mary Magdalene both kneeling
at the foot of the cross, robed in the richest velvet. Figures in
white, with stripes of red, came after, with a yet more costly
Calvary. The well-carved crucifix rose from a gilded mound, and Our
Mother of Healing wore a gold crown of exceeding price. But the third
Calvary, all wrought in black and gold, the colors of the brotherhood,
which were repeated in standard and costume, won the plaudits of the
evening. Here Longinus, the Roman centurion, mounted on a spirited
horse, was in the act of piercing with his lance the Saviour's side.
Amid _vivas_ and _bravos_ this Passion picture passed, like its
predecessors, in clouds of incense and peals of solemn music.
On Thursday the wearing of black was almost universal. We rummaged our
shawl straps for some poor equivalent of the Spanish black silks and
black mantillas. The Civil Guard was more superb than ever in
full-dress uniform, with red vests and white trousers. No sound of
wheels was suffered within the city limits, and late arrivals had to
commit their luggage to a porter and follow him on foot.
At three o'clock, in the Sagrario of the cathedral, the archbishop
washed the feet of thirteen old paupers, who sat in two confronting
rows, looking neat as wax and happy as honey, each dressed in a
brand-new suit, with a long-fringed damask towel over his shoulder.
Their old blood had been warmed by the archbishop's own wine, for they
had just come from luncheon in the ecclesiastical palace, where they
had been served by the highest dignitaries of the church and the
proudest nobles of the city. The function of foot washing was not
taken too seriously. The fat canons smiled good-humoredly on their
archbishop, as his group of attendants lowered him to his knees and
lifted him again before every old man in turn, and the acolytes nudged
one another with boyish mirth over the rheumatic, embarrassed efforts
of the beneficiaries to put on their stockings.
A Franciscan friar mounted the pulpit, however, and turned the
congregation, thickly sprinkled with English visitors, serious enough
by a succinct and fiery sermon, saying, in a nutshell, that love is
the glory of the religious life, but is the fruit only of Catholicism,
for nowhere, though one searches the world over, can there be found a
work of mercy--hospital, asylum, endowed school, charity of any sort
or kind--due to Protestantism. And the old paupers, glancing down at
their new suits and feeling the glow of their banquet, were glad to
the tips of their purified toes that their lots had been cast in
Catholic Spain.
By six o'clock the squares and streets along the processional route
were thronged again, although our Spanish friends assured us that the
numbers were less than usual. The war feeling kept the Americans and,
to some extent, the English away, while many of the Spanish of the
provinces, who were accustomed to take their annual outing in Seville
during the _Semana Santa_, were held at home this year by poverty or
mourning.
The first two pageants of the afternoon, those of the bull-fighters
and the cigarette-makers, were awaited with especial eagerness. For
these Seville brotherhoods, more than thirty in all, still maintain
something of the mediaeval structure of the guilds. Just as in England
and France, from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, or
thereabouts, organized companies of craftsmen used to present in
Passion Week successive scenes from the life of Christ, these Spanish
_cofradias_ to-day maintain such general lines of division in
performing a similar function. Yet any Catholic Sevillian may, if he
chooses, secure admission to any of these societies, irrespective of
his occupation. The young _caballero_ who chanced to be our prime
source of information this Thursday afternoon was himself of a
prominent family, a protege of the archbishop, and a student of law,
yet he belonged to the brotherhood of Fruit Venders, although his
devotion seemed a little languid, and he had excused himself on this
occasion from the long march in the breathless Nazarene garb.
Not all the brothers feel bound to perform this penitential service
every Passion Week, and, indeed, not all the brotherhoods. Several of
the most elaborate pageants were missing from the ranks this year.
Such omissions are not as disastrous to the processional effect as
they would have been in England, for example, some six centuries ago.
Then the gilded and tapestried platforms, set on wheels, which the
processions conducted through the streets, were really stages, and at
the halting places the best actors of each guild played upon its
particular platform an appointed scene from the sacred drama. The
sequence of events was duly observed, and the spectator, standing in
market-place or at street corner, while one theatre after another
rolled by him, saw acted out with much finery of wardrobe and
ingenuity of machinery, with tragic dialogue and declamation, relieved
by comic interludes, all the Bible story, from the revolt of Lucifer
to the Day of Judgment. But modern Spain, abandoning the acting and
recitation and substituting puppets for living men, has let slip the
dramatic sequence, so that a few pageants less means only so much
abatement in the general splendor of the spectacle.
The bull-fighters of Andalusia are eminently religious and are said,
likewise, to be remarkable for their domestic virtues. All their manly
fury is launched against the bull, and they have only gentleness left
for wives and children. I have heard no better argument for the bull
ring. At all events, these _toreros_, marching soberly in black, with
yellow belts, escorted with well-ordered solemnity an image of the
crucified Christ, followed by a queenly effigy of Our Lady of Refuge,
erect behind terraced ranks of candles on a flower-strewn litter,
under a costly canopy of black velvet embroidered with gold. The
cigarette-makers came after with their two pageants, Christ fastened
to the pillar, and Our Lady of Victory.
It was, as usual, the second upon which the main expense had been
lavished. A great company of acolytes, richly clad and swinging
censers of pure silver, went in advance of the Virgin, and three bands
of music followed her with continuous acclaim, while a regiment of
soldiers attended as a guard of honor. Immediately in front of the
_paso_ went, surrounded by officers and aides, General Ochando, his
head uncovered and his breast glittering with decorations, for the
young king of Spain is a member of this _cofradia_, and had sent the
distinguished military governor of the Provinces, who has a palace in
Seville, to represent him. Especial enthusiasm was called out by this
image of Mary, for the cigarette-makers had just presented her with a
new mantle at a cost of nine thousand dollars. The brothers were
willingly aided by the seven thousand women who work in the immense
tobacco factory, the average contribution of each donor being two
_centimos_ (two-fifths of a cent) a week during the preceding year. No
wonder that the Virgin seemed to stand proudly upon her silvered
pedestal, her gorgeous new mantle streaming out until it almost
touched the head of a white-vested girl who walked barefoot close
behind the litter, so fulfilling a vow made in extremity of illness.
Black and white were the banners and costumes of the third procession,
very effective through the deepening dusk. Their leading pageant was a
Gethsemane, famous for the beauty of the carving. Christ is
represented in prayer before an angel, who bears in one hand the cross
and in the other the cup of bitterness, while Peter, James, and John
are sleeping near their Master. These Passion groups are, with a few
exceptions of still earlier date, works of the seventeenth century,
the glorious period of Spanish art, the day of Murillo and Velazquez.
The most and best are from the hand of the Sevillian Montanes, of
chief repute in the Spanish school of polychrome sculpture, but this
Gethsemane was carved by his imitator, Roldan, whose daughter, La
Roldana, is accredited with the figure of the angel and with the
reliefs that adorn the pedestal.
Another Virgin, who, like all the rest, seemed a scintillation of gold
and jewels, swept by, and a new troop of Nazarenes, this time in
purple and white, passed with two august pageants,--the Descent from
the Cross and the Fifth Anguish of Mary. Then came two files of
ash-colored figures, who marshalled, between their rows of starry
tapers, each taper bending toward its opposite, a vivid presentation
of the Crowning with Thorns; and, after this, their Mary of the
Valley, noted for the gracious sweetness of her countenance. This
image is held to be one of Montanes's masterpieces in wood-carving.
Five processions had now passed, with their two pageants each, and the
hour was late, but we could not leave the balcony for anything so
commonplace as dinner. Far down the street of _Las Sierpes_ waved a
river of lights, announcing the advent of the most ancient of all the
Sevillian brotherhoods, Jesus of the Passion. The crowded _plaza_ rose
in reverence as the Crucifixion _paso_ was borne by, and Our Lady of
Mercy, too magnificent for her name, was greeted with rapturous
outcries.
[Illustration: OFF FOR THE WAR]
Just how and when and where something in the way of food was taken, I
hardly know, but as this, the last of the Thursday evening
processions, passed in music out of the _plaza_, a few of us made
speed by a deserted side street to the cathedral. We were too late for
the _Miserere_, which was just closing in that surprising hubbub,
the stamping of feet and beating of canes and chairs against the
floor, by which Spanish piety is wont to "punish Judas." But we took
our station near by the entrance to the Royal Chapel, wherein had been
erected the grand Holy Week monument, in white and gold, shaped like a
temple, and shining with innumerable silver lamps and taper lights.
Within this monument the Host, commonly spoken of in Spain as _Su
Majestad_, had been solemnly placed the night before, much as the
mediaeval church used to lay the crucifix, with requiems, under the
High Altar on Good Friday, and joyously bring it forth again Easter
morning. But Spanish Catholicism is strangely indifferent to dates,
burying the Host on Wednesday and celebrating the Resurrection
Saturday.
All day long the Royal Chapel had been filled with relays upon relays
of kneeling worshippers, and the hush there had been so profound that
the hum of the tourist-haunted nave and the tumult of the streets
seemed faint and foreign to the hearing, like sounds a universe away.
Before this chapel entrance all the pageants, as they were borne in
silence through the cathedral, paused and did homage to the Host.
Having outstripped the procession, we had arrived in season to witness
three of these salutations. The Nazarenes, in passing, fell upon their
knees in the light of the great, gleaming monument, and each of the
heavy platforms was slowly swung about so that it faced this symbol of
Christ's sepulchre.
Yet there was something besides devotion in the cathedral. As the
crowd pressed close, we felt, more than once, a fumbling at our
pockets, and the little artist lost her purse. The rest of us
comforted her by saying over and over that she ought to have known
better than to bring it, and by severally relating how cautious we had
been on our own accounts.
It was hard upon eleven when we returned to the house, but the streets
were all alive with people. I went to the balcony at midnight, and
again at the stroke of one, and both times looked down upon a _plaza_
crossed and recrossed in all directions by talkative, eager groups.
Many of these restless promenaders had been able to get no lodgings,
and were walking to keep warm. The pressure upon the hotels was so
great that one desperate stranger this Thursday night paid twenty
dollars for a cot from ten o'clock till two, and private hospitality
was taxed to a degree that nothing but Spanish courtesy and
good-nature could ever have endured. In the house which harbored us,
for instance, we were all fitted in as compactly as the pieces of a
puzzle, when the unexpected friends began to arrive.
On Wednesday there appeared from the far north a man and wife,
acquaintances of ten years back. Our host and hostess greeted this
surprise party with Andalusian sunshine in their faces, and yielded up
their own room. Thursday morning there walked gayly in one of the
son's university classmates from Madrid. Don Pepe embraced him like a
brother, and surrendered the sofa, which was all he had left to give.
And this Thursday midnight, as a crowning touch, three more chums of
college days came clattering at the bell. Their welcome was as cordial
as if the household were pining for society. The tired maids, laughing
gleefully over the predicament, contributed their own mattresses and
pillows, and made up beds on the study floor, where Don Pepe camped
out with his comrades, to rise with a headache that lasted for days
after.
By two o'clock I had taken my station on the balcony for an all-night
vigil. The most of the family bore me company for the cogent reason
that they had nowhere to sleep, but the other guests of the house held
out for only an hour or two, and then went blinking to their repose.
My memory of the night is strangely divided between the dreamlike,
unearthly pomps and splendors streaming through the square below and
the kindly, cheery people who came and went about me. The senora,
still fresh and charming, although she has wept the deaths of fourteen
out of her nineteen children, was merrily relating, with weary head
against her husband's shoulder, her almost insuperable difficulties in
the way of furnishing her table. The milkman roundly declared that if
she wanted a double quantity of the precious fluid (and goat's milk at
that), she must make it up with water. There was no meat to be had in
the Catholic city during these holy days, and even her baker had
forsaken his oven and gone off to see the sights. And the
black-bearded senor, who, like his wife, had not been in bed for forty
odd hours, laughed at her and comforted her, puffed harder than ever
at his cigarette, and roguishly quoted the saying, "He whom God loves
has a house in Seville."
By two o'clock the seats on the grand stand were filling fast, the
_plaza_ hummed with excitement, the balconies resounded with song and
laughter, and the strong electric lights in front of the city hall
cast a hard, white brilliance over all the scene. The frying of
_calientes_, an Andalusian version of twisted doughnuts, was in savory
progress here and there on the outskirts of the throng, and our ever
thoughtful hostess did not fail to keep her balcony well supplied
with these crisp dainties.
The twinkling of taper lights, so warm and yellow under those pallid
globes of electric glare, appeared while people were still hurrying to
their places; but hundreds upon hundreds of black and gold figures had
paced by before the first of their _pasos_ came into view. For these
processions of the dawn, _de madrugada_, call out great numbers of the
devout, who would thus keep the last watch with their Lord. The clocks
struck three as the leading pageant, a very ancient image of Christ,
bearing a silver-mounted cross of tortoise-shell, halted before the
Alcalde. A white banner wrought with gold heralded the Virgin, who
rose, in glistening attire, from a golden lake of lights.
The wealthy _cofradia_ of San Lorenzo followed in their costly habits
of black velvet. They, too, conducted a pageant of Christ bearing His
cross, one of the most beautiful groups of Montanes, the pedestal
adorned with angels in relief. To the Christ, falling on the Via
Dolorosa, the brotherhood, with the usual disregard of historic
propriety, had given a royal mantle of ermine, embroidered with gold
and pearls. A large company of black-clad women, carrying candles,
walked behind the _paso_, on their penitential march of some eight
hours. Many of them were ladies delicately bred, whose diamonds
sparkled on the breast of the approaching Mary. For the Sevillian
senoras are accustomed to lend their most valuable gems to their
favorite Virgins for the _Semana Santa_, and San Lorenzo's Lady of
Grief is said to have worn this night the worth of millions. She
passed amid a great attendant throng, in such clouds of incense that
the eye could barely catch the shimmer of her silver pedestal, the
gleam of the golden broideries that almost hid the velvet of her
mantle, and the flashes and jets of light that shot from the
incredible treasure of jewels that she wore.
The third troop of Nazarenes, robed in white and violet, bore for
banner a white cross upon a violet ground. Their Christ-pageant
pictured Pilate in his judgment seat in the act of condemning the Son
of God to death. Jesus, guarded by armed soldiers, calmly confronts
the troubled judge, at whose knee wait two little pages with a basin
of water and towels.
And now came one of the most gorgeous features of the Holy Week
processions--a legion of Roman soldiers, attired as never Roman
soldiers were, in gold greaves and crimson tunics, with towering
snow-white plumes. But a splendid show they made as, marching to drum
and fife, they filed down _Las Sierpes_ and stretched "in never ending
line" across the _plaza_. Our most Holy Mary of Hope, who followed,
wearing a fair white tunic and a gold-embroidered mantle of green, the
color of the hopeful season, drowned the memory of that stern military
music in a silver concert of flutes.
After this sumptuous display, the fourth band of Nazarenes, gliding
through the _plaza_ between night and day in their garb of black and
white, could arouse but little enthusiasm, although their Crucifixion
was one of the most artistic, and their Lady of the Presentation had
her poorest garment of fine satin.
A pearly lustre was stealing through the sky, and the chill in the air
was thinning the rows of spectators on the grand stand, when
mysterious, dim-white shapes, like ghosts, bore by in utter silence a
pageant of Christ fainting beneath the burden of the cross. But soon
the clamor of drums and fifes ushered in another long array of Roman
soldiers, a rainbow host in red and pink and blue, crimson plumes
alternating with white, and golden shields with silver. The electric
lights, globed high overhead, took one look at this fantastic
cavalcade and went out with a gasp.
It was now clear day. Canaries began to sing in their cages, and
parrots to scream for chocolate. Sleepy-eyed servant-maids appeared on
the balconies, and market women, leading green-laden donkeys, peered
forth from the side streets into the square. The morning light made
havoc with the glamour of the pageants. Something frank and practical
in the sunshine stripped those candle-lighted litters of their
dignity. Busy people dodged through the procession lines, and one
Nazarene after another might be seen slipping out of the ranks and
hurrying awkwardly, in his cumbersome dress, with the half-burned
taper under his arm, to the refuge of his own mosquito-netting and
orange tree. The tired crowd grew critical and irreverent, and openly
railed upon the Virgin of this ghostly _cofradia_ because her velvet
mantle was comparatively plain. "Bah! how poor it is! Are we to sit
here all the night for such stingy shows as that?"
But the last brotherhood in the _madrugada_ processions had, with
their white frocks and blue caps and capes, suited themselves to the
colors of the day. The stumbling children, blind with sleep, whom
fathers were already leading off the square, turned back for a drowsy
gaze at the resplendent tunic of the Christ in the Via Dolorosa
_paso_, a tunic claimed to be the richest of all the garments worn by
the effigies of Jesus. So lovely was this trooping company in their
tints of sky and cloud, bearing a great blue banner and a shining
ivory cross, that they brought order and decorum with them.
The division that escorted the Virgin marched on with especial
steadiness, not a peaked cap drooping, nor a boyish acolyte faltering
under the weight of his tall gilded censer. This most Holy Mary of
Anguish, whose litter and canopy were all of white and gold, swept by
in triumphal peals of music while the clocks were striking six. In
some mental confusion, I said good night to the people I left on the
balcony, and good morning to the people I met on the stairs, and ate
my breakfast before I went to bed.
It seemed as if human nature could bear no more; the eyes ached with
seeing, and phantasmal processions went sweeping through our dreams;
yet Friday afternoon at five o'clock found our balcony, like all the
rest, full to overflowing. Some twenty thousand people were massed in
the _plaza_, and it was estimated that over one hundred thousand
waited along the line of march. Our Spanish entertainers, still
unrefreshed by any chance for sleep, were as gayly and punctiliously
attentive to their guests as ever, from our gallant host, who
presented the ladies with fragrant bouquets of roses and orange
blossoms, to the little pet of the household, who at the most
engrossing moments in the ceremonial would slip away from her
privileged stand on a footstool against the railing to summon any
member of the party who might be missing the spectacle.
The Spanish colors floated out from city hall and court-house, but the
great concourse below was all in hues of mourning, the black mantillas
often falling over dresses of plain purple. The senoritas in the
balconies had substituted knots of black ribbon for the customary
flowers in the hair. Jet trimmings abounded, and the waving fans were
black.
The coming procession, we were assured on every hand, would be the
most solemn of all and the most sumptuous. The habits of the Nazarenes
would be of satin, silk, and velvet. The images of Christ and the
Virgin would be attired with all possible magnificence of damask and
ermine, gold and jewels. Brotherhood would vie with brotherhood in
splendor, and one prodigy of luxury would succeed another.
The leading company, whose far-trailing robes carpeted the street with
fine black velvet, stood for the olive industry. This _cofradia_ had
been poor and unimportant for generations, but in recent years a
devoted brother, a manufacturer of olive packing-barrels, had poured
forth his accumulated fortune upon the society, with the result that
their _pasos_ are now second in ostentation and expense to none. The
donor, long since too feeble to bear his taper in the line, lives in
humble obscurity, but his old heart swells with joy this great day of
the year when he sees, following the elaborate carving of the
Crucifixion, the dazzling chariot of Our Lady of Solitude. Upon her
mantle, which enjoys the proud distinction of being the very costliest
of all, he has lavished twenty thousand dollars. Longer by a yard than
any of the others, it was yet unable to find place for all the gold
which the zealous Nazarene had given for it, and the residue was
bestowed about the pedestal and canopy. The _paso_ is so heavy with
gold that it requires a double force of men to carry it; but each of
these hidden bearers, getting air as best he can through a silver
breathing-tube, is sure of a dollar for his recompense as well as two
glasses of good wine.
[Illustration: GRANADA. LOOKING TOWARD THE DARRO]
All the adornment of the litter is of pure gold, and such wealth of
jewels glinted from the Virgin's glorious raiment that a triple force
of Civil Guards was detailed for her protection. Her ardent worshipper
has denied her nothing. The very columns that uphold her canopy are
exquisite in carving, and it is his yearly pride to see that her
clouds of incense are the thickest, and her train of musicians the
most extended, in all that glittering line.
The second _cofradia_ exhibited but a single pageant, relying for
effect upon the beauty of the sculpture. The Mater Dolorosa was bowed
in her desolation at the foot of the Holy Rood, from which hung only
the white folds of the winding-sheet.
But the third brotherhood had bethought themselves to introduce,
between their austere Crucifixion and their shining image of Mary,
another preposterous parade of Roman soldiers--flower-colored,
plume-tossing, butterfly creatures far too bright, if not too good,
"for human nature's daily food." One whiff from Caesar's iron breast
would have blown them away like soap bubbles.
The silversmiths trooped by in graver, more majestic state, their
purple velvet habits girded with gold cords. Upon a gilded pedestal,
wrought with high relief, was seen their Christ, bowed beneath a
precious cross of tortoise-shell and silver. Our Lady of Expectation
gleamed with gold and gems, and this haughty brotherhood received a
full meed of applause.
Black from top to toe was the fifth procession. Their Jesus of the Via
Dolorosa bent beneath a sombre cross of ebony embossed with gold, but
the blithe young voices of the countless choir-boys, singing like
birds before the dawn, ushered in a sun-bright image of Mary.
But something was amiss with the processional order. Where were the
stately ranks of Montserrat? Alas and alas! Scarcely had this
aristocratic _cofradia_ gone a hundred paces from their chapel when,
in the narrow street of Murillo, a leaning candle touched the lace
skirt of the Virgin and instantly all the front of the litter was in
flames. It was hardly a matter of minutes. From the balconies above
were dashed down pailfuls and pitcherfuls of water. The Nazarenes,
wrenching away the blue velvet mantle wondrously embroidered in gold
with castles, lions, and _fleurs de lis_, succeeded in rescuing a
ragged half of it, and the Civil Guards, drawing their swords and
forming a circle about the smoking litter, saved the jewels from
robbery. Perhaps the other _paso_, too, Christ of the Conversion of
the Penitent Thief, had some protecting influence. But in all this ado
about her finery, the poor Virgin's face, beloved for its winsome
look, was completely burned away. In sorry plight Our Lady of
Montserrat was hurried back to her chapel, and the swift rumor of the
disaster sent a superstitious trouble through the city.
But more and more solemnly the taper-bearing troops of Nazarenes
poured by with the culminating pictures of the Passion. These last
three _cofradias_ presented each a single pageant. An escort in dark
purple conducted an impressive Descent from the Cross. The Virgin, her
crowned head bowed in anguish, clasps the drooping body of Christ to
her heart, while John and Mary Magdalene look on in hopeless sorrow.
Figures in black and white came after, with their sixteenth-century
carving, Christ of the Dying Breath, beneath the cross standing Our
Lady of Tears. And last of all, in slow, sad movement, their white
trains streaming like a line of light along the stone-paved way,
passed the second brotherhood of San Lorenzo, bearing the Most Blessed
Virgin in her Solitude. The gold of her mantle seemed one with the
gold of the candle rays, and, for many a silent watcher, those
gliding, gleaming, spiritlike forms will move forever down a shining
path in memory. So closed the Holy Week processions.
"How sorry I am," said our host, with the Andalusian twinkle in his
eye. "It is almost eleven o'clock. Ladies and gentlemen, will you
please walk out to dinner?"
On Saturday morning we went early to the cathedral for the closing
rite. The Sagrario was thronged. Some of the senoras had brought low
folding chairs with them, others sat upon the floor, but most of that
innumerable congregation knelt or stood. We were all facing the great
purple veil which concealed the high altar, with Roldan's retablo of
the Descent from the Cross. There was an hour or more of expectation,
during which rosaries slipped through the fingers of many a veiled
nun, and the soft murmur of prayer came from strong men as well as
from pale-faced women. Suddenly, while a shock of thunder crashed from
the organ, hidden ministrants sharply drew on hidden cords, the purple
curtain parted in the midst, and the two folds rolled asunder,
revealing the high altar, with its carving of the accomplished
Passion. The organ poured forth jubilees of victory, all the bells of
the cathedral pealed together, _Gloria in Excelsis_ soared in choral
chant, and amid the awe-stricken multitudes fallen to their knees, _Su
Majestad_ was borne in priestly procession from the tomb in the Royal
Chapel to the candles and incense which awaited at the high altar that
triumphal coming.
Easter Sunday was celebrated by a bull-fight.