Some typographical errors have been corrected; some but not all the
spelling and accentuation of Spanish words/names have been corrected.
a list follows the text. Volume 1 was published without an index. The
full Index from Volume 2 has been appended to this ebook.
[E-text transcriber's note.]
SPAIN
[Illustration: _A Bull Fight_]
_EDITION ARTISTIQUE_
The World’s Famous
Places and Peoples
[Illustration]
SPAIN
BY
EDMONDO DE AMICIS
_Translated
by Stanley Rhoads Yarnall, M.A._
In Two Volumes
Volume I.
MERRILL AND BAKER
New York London
THIS EDITION ARTISTIQUE OF THE WORLD’S FAMOUS PLACES AND PEOPLES IS
LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED AND REGISTERED COPIES, OF WHICH THIS
COPY IS NO. .205.
Copyright, Henry T. Coates & Co., 1895
CONTENTS.
PAGE
BARCELONA 7
SARAGOSSA 43
BURGOS 89
VALLADOLID 127
MADRID 151
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME I
PAGE
BARCELONA 22
STREET IN SARAGOSSA 58
WATER-CARRIER 92
STREET IN VALLADOLID 130
FOUNTAIN OF CYBELE, ALCALÁ, MADRID 166
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, BY MURILLO 184
VIRGIN OF THE NAPKIN 190
IMPLANTING THE BANDILLERA 214
THE CHARGE 214
MATADORS, MADRID 240
TOMB OF CHARLES V, ESCURIAL 266
BARCELONA.
It was a rainy morning in February, and lacked an hour of sunrise. My
mother accompanied me to the hall, anxiously repeating all the counsels
she had been giving me for a month: then she threw her arms about my
neck, burst into tears, and disappeared. I stood a moment stricken to
the heart, looking at the door, on the point of calling out, “Let me in!
I am not going! I will stay with thee!” Then I ran down the stairs like
an escaping thief. When I was in the street it seemed that the waves of
the sea and the peaks of the Pyrenees were already lying between me and
my home. But, although I had for a long time looked forward to that day
with feverish impatience, I was not at all cheerful. At a turn of the
street I met my friend the doctor on his way to the hospital. He had not
seen me for a month, and naturally asked:
“Where are you going?”
“To Spain,” I replied.
But he would not believe me, so far was my frowning, melancholy face
from promising a pleasure-trip. Through the entire journey from Turin
to Genoa I thought only of my mother, of my room, now empty, of my
little library, of all the pleasant habits of my domestic life, all of
which I was leaving for many months.
But, arrived at Genoa, the sight of the sea, the gardens of the
Acquasola, and the company of Anton Giulio Barili restored me to
serenity and cheerfulness. I recollect that as I was about to step into
the boat that was to take me to the ship a porter handed me a letter
which contained only these words: “Sad news from Spain. The condition of
an Italian at Madrid in time of insurrection against the king would be
perilous. Do you persist in going? Consider!” I leaped into the boat and
was off. Shortly before the ship sailed two officers came to bid me
good-bye. I can still see them standing in the middle of the boat as the
ship began to move.
“Bring me a Toledo blade!” they cried.
“Bring me a bottle of Xeres!”
“Bring me a guitar! an Andalusian hat! a stiletto!”
A little while, and I could see only their white handkerchiefs and hear
their last cry: I tried to answer, but my tongue cleaved to the roof of
my mouth; I began to laugh, but brushed my hand across my eyes. Soon I
retired to my little hole of a stateroom, where, lulled into a delicious
sleep, I dreamed of my mother, my purse, France, and Andalusia. At dawn
I awoke, and was soon on deck. We were not far from the coast, the
French coast--my first view of a foreign coast. Strange! I could not
look at it enough, and a thousand fugitive thoughts passed through my
head, and I said, “Is it France, in very truth? And is it I who am
here?” I began to doubt my own identity.
At mid-day Marseilles came into view. The first sight of a great
maritime city fills one with an amazement which destroys the pleasure of
the marvel. I see, as through a mist, a vast forest of ships; a waterman
who stretches out his hand and addresses me in an incomprehensible
jargon; a customs official who, in accordance with some law, makes me
pay _deux sous pour les Prussiens_; then a dark room in a hotel; then
the longest streets, endless squares, a throng of people and of
carriages; troops of Zouaves, unknown regimentals, a mingling of lights
and of voices, and finally come weariness and profound sadness, which
end in uneasy sleep.
By daybreak on the following morning I was in a railway-carriage on my
way from Marseilles to Perpignan, in the midst of a group of ten Zouave
officers arrived from Africa the previous day, some with crutches, some
with canes, some with bandaged arms; but all as happy and boisterous as
so many school-boys. It was a long journey, consequently conversation
was necessary. However, from all I had heard of the bitterness with
which the French regarded us, I did not venture to open my mouth. But
how foolish! One of them spoke the word and the conversation was
started: “An Italian?”
“Yes.”
It was as good as a holiday. All but one had fought in Italy; one had
been wounded at Magenta. They began to tell anecdotes of Genoa, of
Turin, of Milan, to ask a thousand questions, to describe their life in
Africa.
One began to discuss the Pope. “Oh!” said I to myself. Why? He talked
even stronger than I should have done: he said that we ought to have cut
the knot of the question, and to have gone to the root of the matter
without considering the peasantry.
Meantime, as we were approaching the Pyrenees, I amused myself by
observing the increasing difference in the pronunciation of the
passengers who entered the carriage; by remarking how the French
language died, so to speak, into the Spanish; by feeling how near Spain
was growing until Perpignan was reached; and as I hurried into a
diligence I heard the first _Buenos dias_ and _Buen viaje_, so pure and
sonorous that the words gave me infinite pleasure. Nevertheless, they do
not speak Spanish at Perpignan, but they use a dialect formed by a
mingling of French, Marseillaise, and Catalan, unpleasant to the ear. I
alighted from the diligence at the hotel in the midst of a crowd of
officers, gentlemen, Englishmen, and trunks. A waiter compelled me to
sit down at a table already spread: I ate until I almost strangled, and
was hurried into another diligence and away.
Ah me! I had so long cherished the thought of crossing the Pyrenees, and
I now was forced to make the journey by night. Before we arrived at the
foothills it was dark. Through the long, long hours, between sleeping
and waking, I saw only a bit of the road lit up by the lights of the
lantern of the diligence, the black outline of some mountain, the
projecting rocks, which seemed to be within arms’ reach of the window,
and I heard only the regular tramping of the horses and the whistling of
an accursed wind which blew without a moment’s intermission.
Beside me sat an American from the United States, a young man, the most
original fellow in the world, who slept I know not how many hours with
his head on my shoulder. Now and then he roused himself to exclaim in a
lamentable voice, “Ah what a night! what a horrible night!” without
perceiving that with his head he gave me an additional reason for making
the same lament.
At the first stopping-place we both alighted and entered a little
hostelry to get a glass of liquor; my fellow-traveller asked me if I was
travelling on business. “No, sir,” I replied; “I am travelling for
pleasure; and you, if I may ask?”--“I am travelling for love,” he
replied with perfect gravity.--“For love!--” And then, unasked, he told
me a long story of an unhappy love-affair, of a deferred marriage, of
abductions and duels, and I know not what else; and finally he said he
was travelling for a change of scene to help him forget the lady of his
affections. And, in fact, he sought distraction to the top of his bent,
for at every inn where we stopped, from the beginning of our journey
until we arrived at Gerona, he did nothing but tease the maids--always
with the utmost gravity, it is true, but nevertheless with an audacity
which even his desire for distraction failed to justify.
Three hours after midnight we arrived at the frontier. “_Estamos en
España!_” (We are in Spain!) cried a voice. The diligence came to a
stop. The American and I leaped again to the ground, and with great
curiosity entered a little inn to see the first sons of Spain within the
walls of a Spanish house.
We found a half-dozen customs officials, the host, his wife, and
children sitting around a brasier. They greeted us at once. I asked a
number of questions, and they answered in an open, spirited manner,
which I had not expected to find among the Catalans, who are described
in the gazetteers as a rude people of few words. I asked if they had
anything to eat, and they brought in the famous Spanish _chorizo_, a
sort of sausage, which is overseasoned with pepper and burns the
stomach, a bottle of sweet wine, and some hard bread.
“Well; what is your king doing?” I asked of an official after I had spit
out the first mouthful. The man to whom I spoke seemed embarrassed,
looked first at me, then at the others, and finally made this very
strange answer: “_Esta reinando_” (He is reigning). They all commenced
to laugh, and while I was preparing a closer question, I became
conscious of a whisper in my ear: “_Es un republicano_” (He is a
republican). I turned and saw mine host looking into the air. “I
understand,” said I, and changed the subject. When we had climbed again
into the diligence my companion and I had a good laugh over the warning
of the host, and we both expressed our surprise that a person of his
class should have taken the political opinions of the officials so
seriously; but at the inns where we afterward stopped we learned better.
In every one of them we found the host or some adventurer reading the
paper to a group of attentive peasants. Now and then the reading would
be interrupted by a political discussion, which I could not understand,
because they used the Catalan dialect, but I could get the drift of what
they were saying by the aid of the paper which I had heard them reading.
Well, I must say, among all of those groups there circulated a current
of republican thought which would have made the stoutest royalist
tremble. One of them, a man with a fierce scowl and a deep voice, after
he had spoken a short time to a group of silent auditors, turned to me,
whom by my impure Castilian accent he supposed to be a Frenchman, and
said with great solemnity, “Let me tell you something,
_caballero_!”--“What is it?”--“I tell you,” he replied, “that Spain is
in a worse plight than France;” and after that remark he began walking
up and down the room with bowed head and with his arms crossed upon his
breast. Others spoke confusedly of the Cortes, of the ministry, of
political ambitions, breaches of faith, and other dreadful things. One
person only, a girl at a restaurant in Figueras, noticing that I was an
Italian, said to me with a smile, “Now we have an Italian king.” And a
little while later, as we were going out, she added with graceful
simplicity, “I like him.”
When we arrived at Gerona it was still night. There King Amadeus, after
a joyful welcome, placed a stone in the house where General Alvarez
lodged during the famous siege of 1809.
We passed through the city, which seemed to us of great proportions,
sleepy as we were and impatient to tumble into our corners of the
railroad carriage. Finally we reached the station, and by dawn were on
our way to Barcelona.
Sleep! It was the first time I had seen the sun rise in Spain. How
could I have slept? I put my face close to the window, and did not turn
my head until we came to Barcelona. Ah! there is no greater pleasure
than that one feels upon entering an unfamiliar country, with one’s
imagination prepared for the sight of new and wonderful objects, with a
thousand memories of the fanciful descriptions of books in one’s head,
free from anxiety and free from care.
To press forward into that land, to bend one’s glance eagerly in every
direction in search of something which will convince one, if he is not
already sure of the fact, that he is really there--to grow conscious of
it little by little, now by the dress of a peasant, now by a tree, again
by a house; to notice as one advances the growing frequency of those
signs, those colors, those forms, and to compare all those things with
the mental picture one had previously formed; to find a field for
curiosity in everything upon which the eye rests or which strikes the
ear,--the appearance of the people, their gestures, their accent, their
conversation,--the exclamations of surprise at every step. To feel one’s
mind expanding and growing clear; so long to arrive at once and yet
never to arrive; to ask a thousand questions of one’s companions; to
make a sketch of a village or of a group of peasants; to say ten times
an hour, “I am here!” and to think of telling all about it some
day,--this is truly the liveliest and most varied of human pleasures.
The American was snoring.
The part of Catalonia through which one passes from Gerona to Barcelona
is a varied, fertile, and highly-cultivated country. It is a succession
of little valleys flanked by gently sloping hills, with tracts of heavy
woodland, roaring streams, gorges, and ancient castles; clothed with a
vegetation luxuriant and hardy and of a varied green, which reminds one
of the severe aspect of the Alpine valleys. The landscape is enlivened
by the picturesque dress of the peasants, which corresponds admirably to
the fierceness of the Catalan character. The first peasants I saw were
dressed from top to toe in black velvet, and wore about their necks a
sort of shawl with red and white stripes, and on their heads little
Zouave caps of bright red falling to the shoulder. Some wore a sort of
buskin of skins laced to the knee, others a pair of canvas shoes shaped
like slippers, with corded soles, open in front, and tied about the foot
with interlacing black ribbons--a habit, in fine, easy and elegant, and
at the same time severe. The weather was not very cold, but they were
all bundled up in their shawls, so that only the tip of the nose or the
end of the cigarette was to be seen. They had the air of gentlemen
coming from the theatre. This effect is produced not merely by the
shawls, but by the manner in which they are worn--falling at the side,
so that the arrangement appears accidental, with those plaits and
foldings which add the grace of a mantilla and dignity of a cloak. At
every railway-station there was a group of men, each wearing a shawl of
different color, and not a few dressed in fine new cloth: almost all
were very clean, and all had a dignity of bearing which heightened the
effect of their picturesque costume. There were a few dark faces, but
most of them were fair, with lively black eyes, lacking, however, the
fire and vivacity of the Andalusian glances.
Gradually as one advances the villages, houses, bridges, and aqueducts
become most frequent, with all those things which announce the proximity
of a rich and populous commercial city. Granallers, Sant’ Andrea de
Palomar, and Clot are surrounded by factories, villas, parks, and
gardens. All along the way one sees long rows of carts, troops of
peasants, and herds of cattle; the stations are crowded with passengers.
If one did not know where he was, he might think he was crossing a part
of England rather than a province of Spain. Once past the station of
Clot, the last stop before the arrival at Barcelona, one sees on every
side huge brick buildings, long walls, heaps of building material,
smoking chimneys, stacks of workshops, and many laboring-men, and hears,
or imagines he hears, a muffled roar, growing in extent and volume,
which seems like the labored breathing of a great city at its work. At
last one can see all Barcelona--at a glance the harbor, the sea, a
coronet of hills--and it all appears and disappears in a moment, and
you are sitting in the station with tingling nerves and a confused
brain.
A diligence as large as a railway-carriage took me to a neighboring
hotel, when, as soon as I entered, I heard the Italian speech. I confess
that this was as great a pleasure as if I had been an interminable
distance from Italy and a year absent from home. But it was a pleasure
of short duration. A porter, the same one whom I had heard speaking,
showed me to my room, and, doubtless assured by my smile that I was a
fellow-countryman, asked politely,
“Have you made an end of arriving?”
“Made an end of arriving?” I asked in my turn, elevating my eyebrows.
I must here note that in Spanish the word _acabor_ (to make an end of
doing a thing) corresponds to the French expression _venir de la faire_.
Consequently I did not at once understand what he said.
“Yes,” the porter replied, “I ask the _cavaliere_ if he has alighted the
selfsame hour from the way of iron?”
“Selfsame hour? Way of iron? What sort of Italian is this, my friend?”
He was a little disconcerted.
However, I afterward discovered that there is in Barcelona a large
number of hotel-porters, of waiters in the restaurants, cooks, and
servants of all kinds--Piedmontese for the most part from the province
of Navarre--who have lived in Spain from boyhood and speak this
dreadful jargon composed of French, Italian, Castilian, Catalan, and
Piedmontese. However, they do not use this dialect in addressing the
Spanish people, for they all know Spanish, but only to Italian
travellers in a playful spirit, to let them see that they have not
forgotten the speech of their fatherland.
This explains the fact that I have heard many Catalonians say, “Oh!
there is very little difference between your language and ours.” I
should think so! I ought also to repeat the words which a Castilian
singer addressed to me in a tone of lofty benevolence as we were
conversing on the boat which bore me to Marseilles five weeks later:
“The Italian language is the most beautiful of the dialects formed from
ours.”
* * * * *
As soon as I removed the traces which _the horrible night_ of the
crossing of the Pyrenees had left upon me I sallied forth from the hotel
and began to wander about the streets.
Barcelona is, in appearance, the least Spanish of the cities of Spain.
Great buildings--very few of which are old--long streets, regular
squares, shops, theatres, large and splendid restaurants, a continuous
moving throng of people, carriages, and carts from the water front to
the centre of the city, and thence to the outskirts, just as at Genoa,
Naples, and Marseilles. A very wide, straight street called the
_Rambla_, shaded by two rows of trees, divides the city from the harbor
to the hills. A fine promenade, flanked by new houses, stretches along
the sea-shore above a high dyke of masonry built like a terrace, against
which the waves beat. A suburb of vast proportions, almost another city,
extends toward the north, and on every side new houses break the old
enclosure, spread over the fields, even to the foot of the hills, range
themselves in endless rows until they reach the neighboring villages,
and on all the circling hills rise villas and palaces and factories,
which dispute the land and crowd each other as they rise even higher and
higher, forming a noble coronet about the brow of the city. Everywhere
they are creating, transforming, renewing; the people work and prosper,
and Barcelona flourishes.
* * * * *
I saw the last days of the Carnival. Through the streets passed long
processions of giants, devils, princes, clowns, warriors, and crowds of
certain figures whom I always have the misfortune to encounter the world
over. They were dressed in yellow and carried long staves, at the ends
of which purses were bound: these they stick under every one’s nose,
into the shops and windows, even to the second stories of the houses,
begging alms--in whose name I know not, but which were most likely spent
in some classic orgy at the close of the Carnival.
The most curious sight which I saw was the
[Illustration: _Barcelona_]
masquerade of the children. It is the custom to dress the boys under the
age of eight years like men, after the French fashion, in complete
ball-dress, with white gloves, great moustaches, and long flowing hair:
some are dressed like the Spanish grandees, bedecked with ribbons and
bangles; others like Catalan peasants, with the jaunty cap and the
mantle. The little girls appear as court-ladies, Amazons, and poetesses
with lyres and laurel crowns; and boys and girls in the costumes of the
different provinces of the kingdom--one as a flower-girl of Valencia,
another as an Andalusian gypsy or a Basque mountaineer--in the gayest
and most picturesque costumes imaginable. Their parents lead them by the
hand in the procession, and it is a tournament of good taste, of
fantasy, and display in which the people share with great delight.
While I was trying to find my way to the cathedral I met a company of
Spanish soldiers. I stopped to look at them, recollecting the picture
which Baretti draws when he tells how they assailed him in a hotel, one
taking the salad from his plate, while another snatched the leg of a
fowl from his mouth. At first sight they resemble the French soldiers,
who also wear the red breeches and gray coat reaching to the knee. The
only noticeable difference is in the covering of the head. The Spanish
wear a parti-colored cap, flat behind and curved in front, and fitted
with a visor which turns down over the forehead. The caps, which are
made of gray cloth, are light, durable, and pleasing to the eye, and
are known by the name of their inventor, Ros de Olano, general and poet,
who patterned them after his hunting-cap. The greater part of the
soldiers whom I saw--they were all in the infantry--were young men,
short of stature, swarthy, alert, and clean, as one would imagine the
soldiers of an army which at one time had the lightest and most
effective infantry in Europe. Indeed, the Spanish infantry has the
reputation of containing the best walkers and swiftest runners. The men
are temperate, spirited, and full of a national pride, of which it is
difficult to get an adequate idea without studying them closely. The
officers wear a short black coat like that of the Italian officers. When
off duty they are in the habit of wearing the coat open, thereby
revealing a waistcoat buttoned to the chin. In the hours of leisure they
do not wear their swords; on the march, like the rank and file, they
wear a sort of gaiter of black cloth reaching almost to the knee. A
regiment of foot-soldiers completely equipped for action presents an
appearance at once pleasing and martial.
The cathedral of Barcelona, in the Gothic style, surmounted by noble
towers, is worthy of standing beside the most beautiful edifices in
Spain. The interior is formed of three vast naves, separated by two rows
of very high pillars slender and graceful in form. The choir, situated
in the middle of the church, is profusely decorated with bas-reliefs,
filigree-work, and small images. Beneath the sanctuary lies a small
subterranean chapel which is always lighted, and in its centre is the
tomb of Eulalia, which one may see by looking through one of the little
windows opening from the sanctuary. There is a tradition that the
murderers of the saint, who was very beautiful, wished before putting
her to death to look upon her body, but while they were taking off her
last covering a thick cloud enveloped her and hid her from their sight.
Her body still remains as fresh and beautiful as when she was alive, and
no human eye may endure to look upon it. Once an incautious bishop
(after the lapse of a century) wished to open the tomb just to see the
sacred remains, but even as he looked he was smitten with blindness.
In a little chapel to the right of the great altar, lighted by many
candles, one sees a crucifix of colored wood, with the Christ’s figure
inclined to one side. It is said that this image was carried on a
Spanish ship at the battle of Lepanto, and that it so bent itself to
avoid a cannon-ball which it saw coming straight for its heart. From the
arched roof of the same chapel hangs a little galley with all its
oars--modelled after the boat in which Don John of Austria fought
against the Turks. Below the organ, of Gothic construction and covered
with great pictorial tapestries, hangs a huge Saracen’s head with a
gaping mouth, from which, in the olden times, candies poured forth for
the children. In another chapel one may see a beautiful marble tomb, and
also some valuable paintings by Viladomat, a Barcelonian painter of the
seventeenth century.
The church is dark and mysterious. Beside it rises a cloister, supported
by grand pilasters, formed of delicate columns and surmounted by
richly-carved capitals depicting scenes from Bible history. In the
cloisters, in the church, in the square lying before it, in the narrow
streets running on either side, there broods a spirit of contemplative
peace which allures and at the same time saddens one like the gardens of
a cemetery. A group of horrid bearded old women guard the door.
After one has visited the cathedral there are no other great monuments
to be seen in the city. In the Square of the Constitution are two
palaces, called the House of the Deputation and the Consistorial, the
first built in the sixteenth, the other in the fourteenth, century.
These buildings still retain some old, noteworthy features--the one a
door, the other a court.
On one side of the House of the Deputation is the rich Gothic façade of
the Chapel of Saint George. Here is a palace of the Inquisition, with a
narrow court, windows with heavy iron bars, and secret passages, but it
has been almost entirely remodelled on the old plans. There are some
enormous Roman columns in the Street of Paradise, lost in the midst of
modern buildings, surrounded by tortuous staircases and gloomy chambers.
There is nothing else worth the attention of an artist. However, in
compensation there are fountains with rostral columns, pyramids,
statues, avenues lined with villas and gardens, and cafés and inns; a
circus for bull-fights that has a capacity of seating ten thousand
spectators; a town which covers a strip of land enclosing the harbor,
laid out with the symmetry of a chequer-board, and peopled by ten
thousand seamen; a number of libraries, a very rich museum of natural
history, and a repository of archives which contains a vast collection
of historical documents dating from the ninth century to our times,
which is to say from the first Courts of Catalonia to the War of
Independence.
Of the objects outside of the city, the most remarkable is the cemetery,
about a half-hour’s ride distant from the gates, in the midst of an
extended plain. Seen from a point just outside of the entrance, it looks
like a garden, and one quickens one’s pace with a feeling of pleased
curiosity. But, once past the gate, one is confronted by a novel
spectacle, indescribable, and wholly different from one’s expectation.
One is in the midst of a silent city, traversed by long, deserted
streets, bordered by straight walls of equal height, which are bounded
in the distance by other walls. Advancing, one comes to an
intersection, and from that point sees other streets with other walls at
the end and other crossways. It is like being in Pompeii. The dead are
placed in the walls lengthwise, disposed in various orders, like the
books in a library. For every coffin there is a corresponding niche, in
which is inscribed the name of the dead. Where no one has been interred
there is the word _propriedad_, which indicates that the position has
been engaged. Most of the niches are enclosed in glass, some with iron
gratings, others, again, with very fine nettings of woven iron. They
contain a great variety of offerings placed there by the families in
memory of their dead; as, for instance, photographs, little altars,
pictures, embroidery, artificial flowers, and the little nothings that
were dear to them in life; ribbons, necklaces, toys of children, books,
brooches, miniatures--a thousand things which recall the home and the
family, and indicate the profession of those to whom they belonged; and
it is impossible to look upon them without compassion. Here and there
one sees a niche open and black within, a sign that a casket will be
placed there during the day. The family of the dead are obliged to pay
an annual sum for the space; when they fail to pay the casket is taken
from the place where it lies and is borne to the common trench of the
burialplace of the poor, which is reached by one of the streets. There
was an interment while I was there. From a distance I saw them place
the ladder and raise the casket, and I passed on. One night a madman hid
himself in one of the empty holes: a watchman passed with a lantern; the
madman gave a terrible cry, and the poor watchman fell to the ground as
though he had been struck by lightning, and it is said he never
recovered from the shock. In one niche I saw a beautiful tress of golden
hair, the hair of a girl who had been drowned in her fifteenth year, and
to it was fastened a card bearing the word _Querida_ (Beloved). At every
step one sees something which affects the mind and the heart. All those
offerings have the effect of a confused murmur, a blending of the voices
of mothers, husbands, children, and aged men, who whisper as one passes,
“Look! I am here!” At every crossway rise statues, mausoleums, shafts
bearing inscriptions in honor of the citizens of Barcelona who performed
deeds of charity during the scourge of yellow fever in 1821 and 1870.
This part of the cemetery, planned, as has been said, like a city,
belongs to the middle class of the people, and is bounded by two vast
enclosures--the one for the poor, bare and dotted with great black
crosses; the other, of an equal size, for the rich, cultivated like a
garden, surrounded by chapels various, rich, and magnificent.
In the midst of a forest of weeping willows and cypresses tower columns,
obelisks, and grand tombs on every side; marble chapels richly adorned
with sculpture, surmounted by bold statues of archangels raising their
arms toward heaven; pyramids, groups of statues, monuments as large as
houses, overtopping the highest trees; and between the monuments
grass-plots, railings, and flower-beds.
At the entrance, between this and the other cemetery, stands a
stupendous marble church, surrounded by pillars and partly hidden by
trees--a sight which amply prepares the mind for the magnificent
spectacle of the interior. On leaving this garden one again passes
through the lonely streets of this city of the dead, which seems even
more silent and sad than when one first entered it. On recrossing the
threshold one turns with pleasure to the many-colored houses of the
suburbs of Barcelona as they lie scattered over the plain, like the
advance-guard sent to announce that a populous city is expanding and
advancing.
From the cemetery to the café is a great leap, but in travelling one
makes even greater ones. The cafés of Barcelona, like nearly all the
cafés in Spain, consists of one vast saloon, adorned with large mirrors,
and with as many tables as it is possible to crowd into the space. The
tables seldom remain vacant, even for half an hour, throughout the
entire day. In the evening they are all full to overflowing, so that one
is many times obliged to wait a good while even to find a seat by the
door. Around every table is a group of five or six _caballeros_ wearing
over their shoulders the _capa_, a mantle of dark cloth, provided with a
generous palmer’s hood and worn instead of our capeless cloak. In every
group they are playing dominoes. This is the most popular game among the
Spaniards. In the cafés from twilight to midnight one hears a loud,
continuous, discordant sound, like the rattling of hailstones, from the
turning and returning of thousands of dominoes by hundreds of hands, so
that one is obliged to raise one’s voice to be heard by one’s next
neighbor. The commonest beverage is the exquisite chocolate of Spain,
which is generally served in little cups, and is about as thick as
preserved juniper-berries and hot enough to scald one’s throat. One of
these cups, with a drop of milk and a peculiar cake of very delicate
flavor which they call _bollo_, makes a luncheon fit for Lucullus.
Between one _bollo_ and the next I made my studies of the Catalan
character, conversing with all the _Don Fulanos_ (a name as common in
Spain as _Tizio_ is with us) who had the good grace not to suspect me of
being a spy despatched from Madrid to sniff the air of Catalonia.
Their minds were greatly stirred by politics in those days, and it often
happened that as I was very innocently speaking of a newspaper article,
a prominent man, or of anything whatsoever, whether at the café or in a
shop or at the theatre, it happened, I say, that I felt the touch of a
toe and heard a whisper at my ear, “Take care! That gentleman on your
right is a Carlist.”--“Hush! This man is a Republican.”--“That one over
there, a Sagastino.”--“The man beside you is a Radical.”--“Yonder is a
Cimbrian.”
Everybody was talking politics. I encountered a rabid Carlist in the
person of a barber, who, learning by my pronunciation that I was a
compatriot of the king, tried his best to drag me into a discussion. I
did not say a word, for he was shaving me, and the resentment of my
wounded patriotism might have led to the drawing of the first blood in
the civil war. But the barber persisted, and, as he did not know how
else to come to the point, he finally said in suave tones,
“You understand, _caballero_, if a war were to break out between Italy
and Spain, Spain would not be afraid.”
“I am fully persuaded of the fact,” I replied, with my eye on the razor.
He then assured me that France would declare war against Italy as soon
as she had paid Germany off: “There is no escape.”
I did not reply. He stood a moment in thought, and then said
maliciously,
“There will be great doings in a little while.”
Nevertheless, it gratified the Barcelonians that the king made his
appearance among them with an air of confidence and tranquillity, and
the mass of the people recall his entrance into the city with
admiration.
I found sympathizers with the king even among some who hissed through
their closed teeth, “He is not a Spaniard,” or, as one of them put it,
“How would they like a Castilian king at Rome or Paris?” A question to
which one replies, “I don’t know much about politics,” and the
conversation is ended.
But the Carlists are the truly implacable party. They say scurrilous
things about our revolution in the best of good faith, the greater part
of them being convinced that the Pope is the true king of Italy--that
Italy wants him, and has submitted to the sword of Victor Emanuel
because she could not do otherwise, but that she is only watching for a
proper occasion to strike for liberty, as the Bourbons and others have
done.
And I am able to offer in evidence of this the following anecdote, which
I repeat as I heard it narrated, without the least shadow of an
intention to wound the person who played the principal part of it: Upon
one occasion a young Italian, whom I know intimately, was presented to
one of the most talented women of the city, who received him with marked
courtesy. A number of Italians were present during the conversation. The
lady spoke very sympathetically of Italy, thanked the young man for the
enthusiasm which he had expressed for Spain, sustained, in a word, an
animated and pleasing conversation with her responsive guest almost all
of the evening. Suddenly she asked:
“In which city will you reside upon your return to Italy?”
“In Rome,” replied the young man.
“To defend the Pope?” asked the lady with perfect sincerity.
The young man looked at her and answered with an ingenuous smile,
“No, indeed!”
That _no_ provoked a tempest. The lady, forgetting that the young man
was an Italian and her guest, broke out into such a fury of invective
against King Victor, the Piedmontese government, and Italy from the time
the army entered Rome to the War of the Marches and Umbria that the
ill-fated stranger turned as white as a sheet with her scolding. But he
controlled himself and did not say a word, allowing the other Italians,
who were friends of long standing, to defend the honor of their country.
The discussion was continued to some length, and finally brought to a
close. The lady found that she had allowed herself to be carried too
far, and showed that she regretted her action; but it was very evident
from her words that she, and doubtless a great many others, were
convinced that the unification of Italy had been accomplished against
the will of the Italian people by Piedmont, the king, the greed of
power, and the hatred of religion.
The common people, however, are republican, and, as they have the
reputation of being quicker of action than those who talk more, they are
feared.
In Spain, whenever they wish to circulate a report of an approaching
revolution, they always begin by saying that it will break out in
Barcelona, or that it is on the point of breaking out, or has broken
out.
The Catalans do not wish to be thought of as on a common footing with
the Spaniards of the other provinces. “We are Spaniards,” they say,
“but, be it understood, of Catalonia--a people, to be brief, that labor
and think; a people to whose ears the din of machinery is more pleasant
than the music of the guitar. We do not envy Andalusia her romance, the
praises of her poets, nor the paintings of her artists; we are content
to be the most serious and industrious people of Spain.” In fact, they
speak of their brothers of the South as at one time, though seldom now,
the Piedmontese used to speak of the Neapolitans and the Tuscans: “Yes,
they have genius, imagination, sweet speech, and amusement; but we, on
the contrary, have greater force of will, greater aptitude for science,
better popular education, ... and moreover, ... character....” I met a
Catalonian, a gentleman distinguished for his ability and learning, who
lamented that the War of Independence had too closely affiliated the
different provinces of Spain, whence it resulted that the Catalonians
had contracted some of the bad habits of the Southerners, while the
latter had acquired none of the good qualities of the Catalans. “We have
become _mas ligeros de casco_” (lighter of head), he said, and he would
not be comforted.
A merchant of whom I asked what he thought of the Castilian character
answered brusquely that in his opinion it would be a fortunate thing for
Catalonia if there were no railroad between Barcelona and Madrid,
because commerce with that race corrupted the character and the customs
of the Catalan people. When they speak of a long-winded deputy, they
say, “Oh yes, he is an Andalusian.”
They ridicule the poetic language of the Andalusians, their soft
pronunciation, their childish gaiety, their vanity and effeminacy.
The Andalusians, on the contrary, speak of the Catalans much as an
æsthetic young lady of literary and artistic tastes would speak of one
of those domestic girls who prefer the cook-book to the romances of
George Sand.
“They are a rude people,” they say, “who have a capacity only for
arithmetic and mechanics; barbarians who would convert a statue of
Montaigne into an olive-press, and one of Murillo’s canvases into a
tarpaulin--the veritable Bœotians of Spain, insupportable with their
jargon, their surliness, and their pedantic gravity.”
In reality, Catalonia is probably the province of least importance in
the history of the fine arts. The only poet who was born in
Barcelona--and he was not great, but only illustrious--was Juan Boscan,
who flourished at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and introduced
into Spanish letters the hendecasyllabic verse, the ballad, the sonnet,
and all the forms of Italian lyric poetry, for which he had a passionate
admiration. Whence arose this great transformation, as it afterward
became, in the entire literature of a people? From the fact that Boscan
took up his residence at Granada at the time when the court of Charles
V. was held there, and that he there met an ambassador from the republic
of Venice, Andrea Navagero, who knew the poems of Petrarch by heart, and
recited them to Boscan, and said to him, “It seems to me that you too
could write such verses; try it!”
Boscan tried: all the literature of Spain cried out against him. Italian
poetry was not sonorous; Petrarch’s poems were insipid and effeminate;
and Spain did not need to harness her Pegasus in the traces of any other
land. But Boscan was unyielding. Garcilasso de la Vega, the chivalrous
cavalier, his friend--he who received the glorious title of Malherbe of
Spain--followed his example. The band of reformers grew little by
little, until it became an army and conquered and dominated all
literature. The consummation of the movement was reached in Garcilasso,
but to Boscan remains the merit of giving it the first impulse, and
hence to Barcelona belongs the honor of having given to Spain the
genius who transformed her literature.
During the few days I remained at Barcelona I was accustomed to spend
the evening in company with some young Catalans, walking on the
sea-shore in the moonlight until late at night. They all knew a little
Italian, and were very fond of our poetry, so from hour to hour we did
nothing but repeat verses--they from Zorilla, Espronceda, and Lope de
Vega; I from Foscolo, Berchet, and Manzoni--alternating in a sort of
rivalry to see who could repeat the most beautiful selection.
It is a novel sensation, that of repeating the verses of one’s native
poets in a foreign country.
When I saw my Spanish friends all intent on the story of the battle of
Maclodio, and then little by little becoming excited, and finally so
inflamed that they grasped me by the arm and exclaimed, with a Castilian
accent which rendered their words doubly grateful, “Beautiful! sublime!”
then I felt my blood surge through my veins; I trembled, and if it had
been light I believe they would have seen me turn as white as a sheet.
They repeated to me verses in the Catalan language. I use the word
“language” because it has a history and a literature of its own, and was
not relegated to the condition of a dialect until the political
predominance was assumed by Castile, who imposed her idiom as
authoritative upon the rest of the provinces. And although it is a
harsh language, made up of short words, and unpleasant at first even to
one who has not a delicate ear, it has none the less some conspicuous
advantages, and of these the popular poets have availed themselves with
admirable skill, particularly in expressing the sense by the sound. A
poem which they recited, the first lines of which imitated the rumbling
of a railway-train, drew from me an exclamation of wonder. But, even
though one may know the Spanish language, Catalan is not intelligible
without explanation. The people talk rapidly, with closed teeth, without
supplementing their speech by gestures, so that it is difficult to get
the sense of the simplest sentence, and it is a great thing to catch a
few occasional words. However, the common people can speak Castilian
when it is convenient, but they do so utterly without grace, although
much better than the common people of the northern Italian provinces
speak Italian. Even the cultivated classes of Catalonia are not
proficient in the national speech.
The Castilian first recognizes the Catalan by his pronunciation, to say
nothing of his voice, but particularly by his uncouth expressions. Hence
a foreigner who comes to Spain with an illusion that he can speak the
language may easily be able to cherish the illusion so long as he
remains in Catalonia, but as soon as he enters Castile and hears for the
first time that crossfire of epigrams, that profusion of proverbs, the
apt expressions, the clear and happy idioms, he stands aghast like
Alfieri in the presence of Dame Vocabulary when they were discussing
hosiery; and then farewell illusion!
On my last night I visited the Lyceum Theatre, which is said to be the
most beautiful in Europe, and probably the largest. It was crowded with
people from the pit to the highest gallery, and could not have
accommodated a hundred more persons. From the box in which I sat the
ladies on the opposite side looked no larger than children, and on half
closing one’s eyes they appeared like so many white lines, one for each
row of boxes, tremulous and sparkling like an immense garland of
camellias impearled with dew and swayed by the breeze.
The vast boxes are divided by partitions which slope down from the wall
to the front of the box, so enabling one to have a good view of the
persons seated on the front row; consequently, the theatre looks like a
great gallery, and so acquires an air of lightness which makes it very
beautiful to look upon. All is in relief; all is open to the view; the
light strikes every part; every one sees every one else; the aisles are
wide, and one may come and go, turn with ease in any direction, look at
a lady from a thousand points of view, pass from the gallery to the
boxes and from the boxes to the gallery,--one may walk about, talk, and
wander here and there all the evening without striking elbows with a
living soul. The other parts of the building are in proportion to the
principal room--corridors, staircases, lobbies, vestibules like those of
a great palace. Then there is an immense, splendid ball-room in which
one could place another theatre. Yet even here, where the good
Barcelonians, after the fatigue of the day, should think of nothing but
recreation or the contemplation of their beautiful, superb women,--even
here the good Barcelonians buy and sell, bargain and chaffer, like souls
condemned to torment.
In this corridor there is a continual passing of bank-runners,
office-clerks, and messenger-boys, and the constant hum of the
market-place. Barbarians! How many beautiful faces, how many noble eyes,
how many splendid heads of dark hair in that crowd of ladies! In ancient
times the young Catalan lovers, to win the heart of their ladies, bound
themselves to fraternities of flagellants and beat themselves with whips
of iron beneath the windows of their loves until the blood burst from
the skin; and the ladies cheered them on, crying, “Lash thyself still
harder, so; now I love thee, I am thine!” How many times did I exclaim
that night, “Gentlemen, for pity’s sake give me a whip of iron!”
The next morning before sunrise I was on my way to Saragossa, and, to
tell the truth, not without a feeling of sadness at leaving Barcelona,
although I had been there only a few days. This city, although it is
anything but the flower of the beautiful cities of the world, as
Cervantes called it,--this city of commerce and warehouses, spurned by
poets and artists--pleased me, and its hurried, busy people inspired me
with respect. And then it is always sad to depart from a city, however
unfamiliar, with the certainty of never seeing it again. It is like
saying good-bye for ever to a travelling companion with whom one has
passed twenty-four happy hours: he is not a friend, but one seems to
love him as a friend, and will remember him all one’s life with a
feeling of affection more real than that one holds toward many who are
called by the name of friends.
As I turned to look once again at the city from the window of the
railway-carriage, the words of Alvaro Tarfe in _Don Quixote_ came to my
lips: “Adieu, Barcelona, the home of courtesy, the haven of wanderers,
the fatherland of the brave! Adieu!” And I continued sadly: “Lo, the
first leaf is torn from the rosy book of travel! So all things pass.
Another city, then another, then another, and then--I shall return, and
the journey will seem like a dream, and it will seem as though I had not
even stirred from home; and then another journey--new cities and other
sad partings, and again a memory vague as a dream; and then?” Alas for
that traveller who harbors thoughts like these! Look at the sky and at
the fields, repeat poetry, and--smoke. _Adios, Barcelona, archivio de la
cortesia!_
SARAGOSSA.