"'True,' quoth Sancho: 'but I have heard say there are more
friars in heaven than knights-errant.' 'It may be so,' replied
Don Quixote, 'because their number is much greater than that
of knights-errant.' 'And yet,' quoth Sancho, 'there are
abundance of the errant sort.' 'Abundance indeed,' answered
Don Quixote, 'but few who deserve the name of
knights.'"--CERVANTES: _Don Quixote_.
It might have been in Seville, though it was not, that I met my most
_simpatico_ example of the Andalusian. He was of old Sierra stock,
merry as the sunshine and gracious as the shadows. Huge of build and
black as the blackest, he was as gentle as a great Newfoundland dog,
until some flying spark of a word set the dark fires blazing in his
eyes. This was no infrequent occurrence, for the travelling
Englishman, as frank as he is patriotic, cannot comprehend the zest
with which well-to-do Spaniards, even in time of war, escape military
service by a money payment. Not the height and girth of our young
giant, nor his cordial courtesy and winning playfulness, shielded him
from the blunt question, "Why didn't you go over to Cuba, a great
fellow like you, and fight for your flag?" His usual rejoinder was the
eloquent Southern shrug of the shoulder, twist of the eyebrow, and
waving lift of the hand, with the not easily answerable words, "And to
what good?" But now and then the query came from such a source or was
delivered with so keen a thrust that his guarded feeling outleaped
reserve. The sarcasms and mockeries that then surged from him in a
bitter torrent were directed chiefly against Spain, although the
American eagle rarely went scot-free. "Ah, yes, it is a fine fowl,
that! He has the far-seeing eye; he has the philanthropic beak and
claw!" But it was the golden lion of Spain against which his harshest
gibes were hurled--"_un animal domestico_, that does not bite."
No one of the party was a tithe as outspoken as our Spaniard himself
in condemning the errors of the Spanish campaign or censuring the
methods of the Spanish Government. If he turned angrily toward a
criticism from a foreigner, it was only, in the second instant, to
catch it up like a ball and toss it himself from one hand to the
other--like a ball that burns the fingers.
Such wrath can easily be the seamy side of love, and, in a way, the
man's national pride was measured by his national shame; but always
over these outbursts there brooded that something hopelessly resigned,
drearily fatalistic, which seems to vitiate the Spanish indignation
for any purposes of practical reform. To suggestions of sympathy he
responded with a pathetic weariness of manner, this handsome young
Hercules, so radiant with the joy of life, who, in his normal mood,
sprinkled mirth and mischief from him as a big dog shakes off water
drops.
"What can one do? I am a Spaniard. I say it to myself a hundred times
a day. I am a Spaniard, and I wish my country were worth the fighting
for, worth the dying for. But is it? Is it worth the toothache? God
knows the truth, and let it rest there. Oh, you need not tell me of
its past. It was once the most glorious of nations. Spaniards were
lords of the West. But--ah, I know, I know--Spain has never learned
how to rule her colonies. He who sows brambles reaps thorns. The
Church, too, has done much harm in Spain--not more harm than another.
I am a Catholic, but as I see it, priests differ from other men only
in this--in the cafe sit some bad men and many good, and in the choir
kneel some good priests and many bad. The devil lurks behind the
cross. But Spain will never give up her Church. It is burned in. You
are a heretic, and like my figure, do you not? It is burned in. There
is no hope for Spain but to sink her deep under the earth, and build a
new Spain on top. And why do I not work for that new Spain? How may a
man work? There is talk enough in Spain as it is. Most Spaniards talk
and do no more. They go to the cafes and, when they have emptied their
cups, they draw figures on the tables and they talk. That is all. The
new Spain will never come. What should it be? Oh, I know better what
it should not be. It should have no king. A republic--that is right.
Perhaps not a republic precisely like America. It may be," and the
melancholy sarcasm of the tone deepened, "there could be found
something even better. But Spain will not find it. Spain will find
nothing.
"What can one do? I know Spain too well. Now, hear! I am acquainted
with a _caballero_. I have been his friend ten years and more. But he
has had the luck, not I. For, first, when we were at the university,
he had a fortune left to him. He became betrothed to a senorita whom
he loved better than his eyelashes. He travelled for his pleasure to
Monte Carlo, and played his fortune all away in one week. He came back
to Madrid, and went to one of the Ministers, to whom his father had in
former days done a great service. My friend said: 'I am to marry. The
lady expects to share the fortune which I have lost. My position is
not honorable. I must have an opening, a chance to redeem myself, or I
shall stand disgraced before her.' The Minister sent him to one of the
Cuban custom-houses, and in two years he returned with great wealth.
On his wedding journey he spent a night at Monte Carlo and gambled it
away to the last _peseta_. A stranger had to lend him money to get
home with his bride. Was he not ashamed and troubled? Ashamed? I do
not know. But troubled? Yes, for he wanted to play longer. Every one
is as God has made him, and very often worse. Again he went to the
Minister, whose heart was softer than a ripe fig and who found him a
post in the Philippines. This time he made a fortune much quicker than
before, knowing better how to do unjustly, but a few weeks before the
war he came home and lost it all again at Monte Carlo. And now he is
horribly vexed, for it is another Minister, and, besides, there are no
colonies to enrich him any more.
"What use to care for Spain? No, no, no, no, no! Spain is a good
country to leave--that is all. And you do well to travel in Spain.
American ladies like change, and Spain is not America. Here you are
not only in a different land, but in a different century. You can say,
when you come out, that you have been journeying a hundred years ago."
On another occasion one of those pleasant individuals who would, as
the Spaniards say, "talk of a rope in the house of one who had been
hanged," saw fit to entertain the dinner-table with anecdotes of
Spanish cruelty.
"But Spaniards are not cruel," protested our young blackamoor in his
softest voice an hour later, stroking with one great hand the head of
a child who nestled against his knee. "What did that English fellow
mean? Why should any one think that Spaniards are cruel?"
I ran over in mind a few of the frightful stories of Las Casas, that
good Dominican friar who would not hold his peace when he saw the
braining of Indian babies and roasting of Indian chiefs. I remembered
how De Soto tossed his captives to the bloodhounds, and what
atrocities were wrought in the tranquil realm of the Incas; I recalled
the horrors of the Inquisition, but these things were of the past. So
I answered, "Perhaps the bull-fights have done something to give
foreigners that impression."
Unlike many educated Spaniards who would rather attend the bull-fights
than defend them, he squared his shoulders for an oration.
"The bull-fights? But why? Bull-fights are not cruel--not more cruel
than other sports in other countries. I have been told of prize-fights
in America. I beg your pardon. I see by your look that you do not like
them. And, in truth, I do not altogether like the bull-fights. The
horses! They are blindfolded, and it is short, but I have seen--ah,
yes! You would not wish to hear what I have seen. I have been often
sorry for the horses. Yet some pain is necessary in everything, is it
not? In nature, perhaps? In society, perhaps? Even, if you will pardon
the illustration, in the deliverance of the Filipinos from Spanish
tyranny?"
I briefly suggested that there was no element of necessity in
bull-fights.
The waving hand apologized gently for dissent.
"But, yes! The bulls are killed for food. That is what foreigners do
not seem to understand. It may be ugly, but it is universal. To supply
men with meat, to feed great cities with the flesh of beasts--it is
not pleasant to think of that too closely. But how to help it? Do you
not have slaughter-houses in America? These also we have in Spain. I
have visited one. It seemed to me much worse than the bull-ring.
Faugh! I did not like it. The cattle stood trembling, one behind
another, waiting for the blow. I should not like to die like that. I
would rather die in the wrath of battle like a _toro bravo_. Oh, it is
not cruel. Do not think it. For these bulls feel no fear. It is fear
that degrades. They may feel pain, but I doubt--I doubt. They feel the
wildness of anger, and they charge and charge again until the
_estocada_, the death stab. That is not so bad a way to die, is it?
Any man would choose it rather than to stand in terror, bound and
helpless, hearing the others fall under the axe and seeing his turn
draw near. Yes, yes! The bull-ring rather than the slaughter-house for
me!"
This was a novel view of the case to the auditor, who ignominiously
shifted her ground.
"But what country uses the slaughter-house as a spectacle and a sport?
It is one thing to take life for food, and another to make a holiday
of the death struggle."
Again that deprecatory waving of the hands.
"I beg your pardon. I do not know how it is in America. Perhaps"
[circumflex accent] "all is merciful and noble there. But when I was
in England I saw something of the chase and of the autumn shooting. I
saw a poor little fox hunted to the death. It was not for food. The
dogs tore him. I saw wounded birds left in the cover to die. It was
too much trouble to gather them all up. And the deer? Does not the
stag suffer more in his flight than the bull in his struggle? I
believe it. To run and run and run, always growing weaker, while the
chase comes nearer--that is an agony. The rage of combat has no terror
in it. I would not die like the deer, hunted down by packs of dogs and
men--and ladies. I would die like the bull, hearing the cheers of the
multitude."
The big fellow bent over the baby that was dropping to sleep against
his knee, and slipped the drowsy little body, deftly and tenderly, to
a sofa. Such sweetness flooded the soft black eyes, as they were
lifted from the child, that it was hard to imagine them sparkling with
savage delight over the bloody scenes of the _corrida de toros_. I
asked impulsively how long it was since he had seen a bull-fight.
Brows and hands and shoulders were swift to express their appreciation
of the bearings of the question, and the voice became very music in
courteous acquiescence.
"Ah, it is four years. Of course, I was much younger then. Yes, yes!
It might not please me now. _Quien sabe?_ And yet--I beg your
pardon--I think I shall go next Sunday in Madrid, on my way to Paris.
It is so weary in London on the Sundays. It was always colder Sunday,
and there was not even a cafe. There was nowhere to go. There was
nothing to do. Why is that good? At the bull-fight one feels the joy
of life. Is it more religious to sit dull and dismal by the fire? I
had no use for the churches. Walking is not amusing, unless the sun
shines and there is something gay to see. I do not like tea, and I do
not care for reading. Spaniards like to laugh and be merry, and when
there is nothing to laugh for, life is a heaviness. There is no
laughter in a London Sunday. I hope Paris will be better, though I
believe there are no bull-fights there as yet. You are not pleased
with me, but let me tell you why I love the _corrida_. It is not for
the horses, you remember. I have sometimes looked away. But why should
I pity the bulls, when they are mad with battle? They do not pity
themselves. They are glad in their fury, and I am glad in seeing it.
But I am more glad in the activity and daring of the men. When they
run risks, that is what makes me cheer. It is not that I would have
them hurt. I am proud to find men brave. And I am excited and eager to
see if they escape. Do you not understand? If you would go
yourself--just once--no? Is it always no? Then let me tell you what is
the best of all. It is to stand near the entrance and watch the people
pass in, all dressed in their holiday clothes, and all with holiday
faces. It is good and beautiful to see them--especially the ladies."
The most attractive qualities of our young Spaniard were his mirth and
courtesy. His merriment was so spontaneous and so buoyant that his
grace of manner, always tempered to time and place and person, became
the more apparent. His humor dwelt, nevertheless, in the borderlands
of irony, and it was conceivable that the rubs of later life might
enrich its pungency at the cost of its kindliness. He was excellent at
games (not sports), especially the game of courtliness (not
helpfulness). The letter was not posted, the message slipped his
memory, the errand was done amiss, but his apologies were poetry. He
made a pretty play of the slightest social intercourse. We would open
our Baedeker at the map which we had already, in crossing Spain,
unfolded some hundred times. He would spring as lightly to his feet as
if his mighty bulk were made of feathers, and stand, half bowing,
arching his eyebrows in appeal, spreading out his hands in offer of
assistance, but not venturing to approach them toward the book until
it was definitely tendered him. Then he would receive it with
elaborate delicacy of touch, unfold the creased sheet with a score of
varied little flourishes, and restore the volume with a whole fresh
series of gesticulatory airs and graces. The next instant he would
peep up from under his black lashes to detect the alloy of amusement
in our gratitude, and drop his face flat upon the table in a boyish
bubble of laughter, saying:--
"Ah! But you think we Spaniards make much of little things. It is
true. We are best at what is least useful."
Light-hearted Andalusian though he was, he had full share of the
energy and enterprise of young manhood. Like the dons of long ago, he
was equipping himself for the great Western adventure. Despite his
Spanish wrath against America, she had for him a persistent
fascination. All his ambitions were bent on a business career in New
York, the El Dorado of his imagination. But it was no longer, at the
end of the nineteenth century, a case of leaping aboard a galleon and
waving a Toledo blade in air. The commercial career demands, so he
fancied, that its knight go forth armed cap-a-pie in the commercial
tongues. Thus he had spent four years of his youth and half of his
patrimony in London and Berlin, and now, after this hasty visit home,
purposed to go to Paris, for a year or two of French. This unsettled
life was little to his liking, but beyond gleamed the vision of a Wall
Street fortune.
Yet even now, at the outset of his task, a frequent lethargy would
steal over his young vigor. It was curious to see, when the March wind
blew chill or the French verbs waxed crabbed, how all his bearing lost
its beauty. There was a central dignity that did not lapse, but the
brightness and effectiveness were gone. His big body drooped and
looked lumpish. His comely face was clouded by an animal sluggishness
of expression. Foreign grimaces twisted across it, and something very
like a grunt issued from beneath his cherished first mustache. His
sarcasm became a little savage. He would sit for hours in a brooding
fit, and, when an inexorable call to action came, obey it with a look
of dreary patience older than his years. It was as if something
inherent in his nature, independent of his will, weighed upon him and
dragged him down. The Spain at which he gibed and from which he would
have cut himself away was yet a millstone about his neck. He was in
the heyday of his youth, progressive and determined, but the torpid
blood of an aged people clogged his veins. Spain will never lose her
hold on him, despite his strongest efforts. His children may be
citizens of the great Republic, but he must be a foreigner to the end.
He must wander a stranger in strange cities, puzzling his Spanish wits
over alien phrases and fashions and ideals, unless, indeed, his spirit
loses edge, and he drifts into chill apathy of disappointment on
finding that his golden castles in America are wrought of that same
old dream-stuff which used to be the monopoly of castles in Spain.
But it is best to leave ill-boding to the gypsies. Good luck may take
a liking to him, if only for the music of his laugh. For even if
blithe heart and courtly bearing bring no high cash value in the
modern business market, they may smooth the road to simple happiness.
Moreover, a Spaniard dearly loves a game of chance, and at the worst,
our fortune-seeker will have thrown his dice. His may seem to the
Yankee onlooker but a losing play, and yet--who knows? "He who sings
frightens away his ills." God's blessing sails in summer clouds as
lightly as in costly pleasure yachts. Out of a shaft of sunshine, a
cup of chocolate, and a cigarette, this Andalusian immigrant, though
stranded in an East Side tenement, may get more luxury than can be
purchased by a multi-millionaire.
[Illustration: A ROMAN WELL IN RONDA]