down the street. I too started off, in the opposite direction, and the
thought came to me: “I’ll wager that he has stopped to see how one of
the Pope’s prison-keepers is made.” I looked back, and there he was,
sure enough, standing stock still in the middle of the square, staring
at me with all his eyes. I could not keep from laughing, so I excused my
amusement with the salutation, “_Beso a usted la mano!_” (I give you my
hand), and he called back, “_Buenos dias!_” (Good-day), and was off. But
he ought to have added, not without surprise, that for an Italian I had
not such a villainous face, after all. I crossed two or three quiet,
narrow streets, and entered the street of Cervantes, a long, straight,
dirty thoroughfare lined with wretched houses. I walked along it for
some distance without meeting anybody but some soldiers and
servants-girls and an occasional mule, my eyes busily scanning the walls
for the inscription, “_A qui vivio Cervantes_,” etc. (“Here lived
Cervantes,” etc.). But I found nothing. On reaching the end of the
street I found myself in the open country. There was not a soul in
sight. I stood a while to look around, and then I retraced my steps. I
happened to meet a muleteer and asked him, “Where is the house in which
Cervantes lived?” The only answer he gave me was a blow for the mule as
he went on his way. I questioned a soldier: he sent me to a shop. In the
shop I questioned an old woman. She did not understand, and, believing
that I wished to buy a copy of _Don Quixote_, sent me to a book-store.
The bookseller, who wanted to play the wiseacre and could not bring his
mind to confess that he knew nothing about the house of Cervantes, began
to beat about the bush, talking of the life and works of that
“marvellously great writer;” so that, to cap the climax, I went off
about my own affairs, without seeing anything. However, the memory of
this house must be preserved (and no doubt if I had searched more
diligently I should have been successful), not only because Cervantes
lived in it, but because an act was committed there which all of his
biographers mention. One night, a short time after the birth of Philip
II., a cavalier of the court happened to meet an unknown man, and for
some unknown reason high words were passed between them: both drew their
swords and fell to fighting, and the cavalier was mortally wounded. The
other disappeared. The wounded man, all drenched with blood, ran to a
neighboring house to find succor. In the house lived Cervantes with his
family, together with a widow of a famous chronicler and her two sons.
One of them ran and lifted the wounded man from the ground and called
Cervantes, who was already in bed. Cervantes got up and helped his
friend carry the cavalier into the widow’s house, where he died two days
later. Justice took a hand in the case and sought to ferret out the
cause of the duel. It was believed that the combatants were both paying
court to the daughter or niece of Cervantes. The entire family were cast
into prison. Shortly afterward they were set at liberty, and nothing
more was heard of it. But even this had to befall the poor author of
_Don Quixote_, so that he might truly say that he had experienced every
misfortune.
In this same street of Cervantes it was my good fortune to witness a
scene which repaid me a thousand times for not finding the house. As I
passed a door I spied a little Castilian girl of twelve or thirteen
years, as beautiful as an angel, standing at the foot of the stairs with
a baby in her arms. I cannot find words sufficiently delicate and
refined to describe what she was doing. A childish curiosity to know the
delight of mother-love had softly tempted her. The buttons of her little
bodice had been slowly slipped through the button-holes one by one under
the pressure of a trembling finger. She was alone; there was not a sound
in the street; she had hidden her hand in her bosom; then perhaps she
stood a moment in doubt, but, glancing at the baby and feeling her
courage renewed, and making a final effort with the hidden hand, she
uncovered her breast as well as she could, and, opening the chubby lips
of the baby with her thumb and finger, she said tenderly, “_Hela aqui_”
(Here it is), her face glowing and a sweet smile in her eyes. Hearing my
step, she gave a cry and disappeared.
Instead of the house of Cervantes I found, a little farther along, the
house in which was born José Zorrilla, one of the most gifted of the
Spanish poets of our time, who is still living, but must not be
mistaken, as many in Italy do mistake him, for Zorilla the radical
leader, although he too has some poetry in his head and scatters it with
a liberal hand through his political speeches, supplementing it with
bursts of eloquence and furious gestures. In my opinion José Zorrilla is
to Spanish letters a little more than Prati is to our Italian
literature, and the two have many points of similarity--religious
feeling, passion, productiveness, spontaneity, and a certain indefinable
quality, vague and daring, which fires the youthful fancy. Zorrilla has
a way of reading in resonant, solemn tones, it is said, somewhat
monotonous, and yet many Spaniards rave over it. In form I should say
the Spanish poet is more correct; they are both prolix, and in each
there is the germ of a great poet. Admirable above every other work of
Zorrilla are his “Songs of the Troubadour,” narrative poems and legends,
full of the tenderest love-lyrics and descriptions of incomparable
beauty. He has written also for the stage. His _Don Juan Tenario_, an
ideal drama, in eight-line rhymed stanzas, is one of the most popular
dramatic operas of Spain. It is performed once a year on All Souls’ Day
with great magnificence, and the people crowd to the performance as they
would to a festival. Some of the lyrics scattered through the drama run
through the speech of all, and especially is this true of Don Juan’s
declaration to his love, whom he has stolen away; which is one of the
gentlest, tenderest, and most ardent expressions that could possibly
fall from the lips of an enamored youth in the most impetuous burst of
passion. I am confident that the coldest of men could not read these
lines without a thrill. The woman’s answer is possibly even stronger:
“Don Juan! Don Juan! I implore thee, of thy noble compassion, rend my
heart or love me, for I adore thee!” Let some fair Andalusian repeat
these lines and see if you do not appreciate them; or, if this be
impossible in your case, read the ballad called “La Pasionaria,” which
is rather long, but full of affection and an entrancing melancholy. I
cannot think of it without my eyes filling with tears. I always see the
two lovers, Aurora and Felice, in the flush of youth, alone at the close
of day in the deserted fields, going their opposite ways, turning at
every step, waving good-bye, and never satisfied with gazing back at
each other. The lines are what the Spanish call _asonantes_ (unrhymed),
but so composed and arranged that the penult of each line, equal or
unequal, is accented and always has the same vowel. This is the most
popular verse in Spain--the verse of the _Romancero_, in which very many
can improvise with surprising facility; nor is a foreigner able to
perceive all its harmony unless his ear has been trained.
“May I see the picture-gallery?”
“Why not, caballerito?” The portress opened the door of the Colegio de
Santa Cruz, and followed me inside. There are many paintings, but
besides some by Rubens, Mascagni, Cardenas, Vincenzo Carduccio, the rest
of them are of very slight merit, gathered together from convents here
and there, and hung at random in the rooms, along the corridors,
staircases, and galleries. None the less, it is a museum which leaves
upon the mind a profound impression, not very unlike that produced by
one’s first sight of a bull-fight; in fact, it is more than six months
since that day, and yet the impression is still as distinct as though it
was made only a few hours ago. The gloomiest, the bloodiest, the most
horrid work from the brushes of the finest Spanish painters are found
there. Imagine gaping wounds, mutilated limbs, heads severed from the
trunks, ghastly corpses, bodies that have been bruised, torn asunder,
racked with the cruelest tortures you have found described in the
romances of Guerrazzi or in the _History of the Inquisition_, and you
will have formed an adequate idea of the gallery of Valladolid. You pass
from room to room and see only faces distorted by death, faces of the
dying, of demoniacs, of executioners, and on every side blood, blood,
blood! until you seem to see blood spurting from the walls and feel as
though you were wading in it, like Father Bresciani’s Babette in the
prisons of Naples. It is a collection of woes and horrors enough to fill
to overflowing all the hospitals in the country.
At first one feels a sense of sadness, then a shudder of abhorrence, and
finally far more than abhorrence--indignation against the
butcher-artists who have so shamelessly debased the art of Raphael and
Murillo.
The most noticeable painting which I saw, among the many bad ones,
although it too was a cruel Spanish realism, was a picture representing
the circumcision of Jesus, with all the most minute details of the
instruments and the operation, and a circle of spectators standing
motionless with bowed heads, like the students of a surgical clinic
around their chief.
“Let us go! let us go!” I said to the courteous portress; “if I stay
here half an hour longer I shall be burned, flayed, or quartered. Have
you nothing more cheerful to show me?”
She took me to see Rubens’ “Assumption,” a grand, effective painting
which would look well above a great altar--a majestic, radiant Virgin,
ascending to heaven, and around her, above and below, a host of angelic
faces, wreaths of flowers, golden hair, white wings, waving pinions,
and dancing sunbeams. It is all tremulous, and pierces the air and soars
upward like a flock of doves, so that it seems from moment to moment
that the whole scene ought to rise and disappear.
But it was not ordered that I should leave the museum with a pleasant
picture before my eyes. The portress opened a door and with a laugh bade
me enter. I entered, and turned back in fright. It seemed to me that I
had fallen upon a madhouse of giants. The vast room was full of colossal
statues of painted wood which represented the drama of the
Passion--soldiers, jailers, and spectators, each in the attitude
befitting his office, some in the act of scourging, others binding the
criminals, others smiting, and wagging their heads--horrid faces
horribly distorted, a few kneeling women, Jesus nailed to an enormous
cross, the thieves, the ladder, the instruments of torture,--in short,
everything one could think of to represent the Passion as it was once
portrayed in the square, with a group of these huge statues which must
have required as much room as a house. And here too were wounds, heads
dripping with blood, and gashes enough to sicken you.
“See that Judas there?” said the woman as she pointed out one of the
statues--a gallows face which I shall dream of sometimes. “When they
arranged the groups outside, they had to take it down, it was so ugly
and sad. The people hated it like death, and wanted to break it to
pieces, and as there was always such a great to-do to guard it and to
keep their threats from becoming deeds, it was decided to form the
groups without it.” The most beautiful statue, to my eyes, was a
Madonna, the work of Berruguete, Juan de Juni, or Hernandez--I do not
know which, for they all three have statues there. She was kneeling with
her hands clasped, and her eyes turned toward heaven with an expression
of such passionate sorrow that one is moved to pity as though the statue
were a living person; and, in fact, a few steps distant it seems to be
alive, so that on seeing it suddenly one cannot check an exclamation of
surprise.
“The English,” said the portress (for the cicerones repeat the opinions
of the English as a confirmation of their own, and sometimes attribute
to them the most tiresome extravagances),--“the English say that only
words are lacking.”
I joyfully assented to the opinion of the English, gave the portress the
customary _reales_, and, taking my departure with a head full of
sanguinary images, hailed the cheerful sky with an unwonted feeling of
pleasure, like a young student leaving the dissecting-room where he has
been assisting at his first autopsy.
I visited the beautiful palace of the University, La Plaza Campo Grande,
where the Holy Inquisition kindled its fagots--a wide, cheerful square,
surrounded by fifteen convents. I went to see a church adorned with
famous paintings, and then my brain began to confuse the images of the
things I had seen. I slipped the guide-book into my pocket and took my
way toward the great square. I did the same thing in all the other
cities, for when the mind becomes tired it may be a good sign of
constancy to force one’s attention in deference to that mistaken idea of
following the guide-book, but it is a dangerous practice for one who is
travelling with the intention of afterward telling the impressions of
what he had seen. For one cannot remember everything, and it is better
not to confuse the vivid remembrances of the principal objects with a
crowd of vague recollections of things of less account. Moreover, one
never has pleasant recollections of a city where he has used his head
for a storehouse.
To see how the city appeared in the evening I took a walk under the
porticoes, where they were beginning to light up the shops, and there
was a continual passing of soldiers, students, and girls, who
disappeared through the little passages, darted between the columns, and
glided here and there to escape the eager hands of their pursuers, who
were enveloped in their flowing capes; a troop of boys were romping
about the square, filling the air with their sonorous cries: and
everywhere there were groups of _caballeros_, among whom one
occasionally heard the names Serrano, Sagasta, and Amadeus alternating
with the words _justicia_, _libertad_, _traición_, _honra de España_,
and the like. I entered a very large café which was full of students,
and there satisfied the natural talent of eating and drinking, as a
refined writer would say. Then, as I had a great desire to talk, I
noticed two students who were sipping their coffee and milk at a
neighboring table, and without any introduction I addressed one of
them--a very natural thing to do in Spain, where one is always sure of
receiving a courteous response. The two students came over, and, as
every one may imagine, we discussed the absorbing subjects of Italy,
Amadeus, the university, Cervantes, the Andalusian women, balls, Dante,
travels; in short, it was a course in the geography, the literary
history, and the customs of the two countries; then a glass of Malaga
and a friendly hand-clasp.
O caballeros of happy memory, comrades in every café, companions at all
the hotel tables, near neighbors in every theatre, fellow-travellers on
all the railway-trains in Spain! who so often, moved by gentle pity for
an unknown stranger, scanning with sad eyes the railway-guide or the
_Correspondencia Española_, thinking of his family, his friends, his
distant country,--who with generous impulse have offered him the
cigarette and drawn him into conversation; who have broken the course of
his gloomy thoughts and have calmed and cheered him,--I thank you,
caballeros of happy memory, whoever you may be, Carlists or Alphonsists
or Amadeists or Liberals--from the bottom of my heart I thank you in the
name of all Italians who are travelling or who will travel in your dear
country; and I swear on the eternal volume of Miguel Cervantes that
whenever I hear your highly-civilized European brothers condemning your
fierce nature and savage manners, I will rise in your defence with the
fire of an Andalusian and the constancy of a Catalan so long as I have
the strength to cry, “Long live hospitality!”
A few hours later I found myself in the carriage of a train bound for
Madrid; the starting whistle was still sounding when I clapped my hand
to my forehead. Alas! it was too late! I had been to Valladolid and had
forgotten to visit the room where Christopher Columbus died!
MADRID.
It was day when one of my companions shouted “Caballero!” in my
ear.--“Are we at Madrid?” I asked as I awoke.--“Not yet,” was the
answer, “but look!” I turned toward the country and saw, half a mile
away on the side of a high mountain, the convent of the Escurial
illuminated by the first rays of the sun. “The grandest of the grand
things on the earth”--as it has been called by an illustrious
traveller--did not seem to me at first sight that immense edifice which
the Spaniards consider “the eighth wonder of the world.” However, I
uttered my “Oh!” like the other travellers who then saw it for the first
time, reserving all my admiration for the day when I should see it near
at hand. From the Escurial to Madrid the railroad crosses a barren plain
which reminds one of the country around Rome.
“Have you never seen Madrid?” asked my neighbor. I replied that I had
not.
“Impossible!” exclaimed the good Spaniard, turning to look at me with a
air of curiosity, as though he was saying to himself, “Let us see what
sort of a creature a man is who never saw Madrid.” Then he began to
enumerate the grand things that I should see: “What walks! what cafés!
what theatres! what women! If one has a hundred thousand dollars to
spend, there is nothing better than Madrid; it is a great monster that
lives on fortunes. If I were in your place, I should take pleasure in
thrusting my fortune also down its throat.”
I felt for my flabby pocket-book and murmured, “Poor monster!”
“Here we are!” cried the Spaniard. “Look!”
I put my head out of the window.
“That is the royal palace.”
I saw an immense pile on an eminence, but shut my eyes quickly, for the
sun was shining in my face. Everybody got out, and then commenced the
customary bustling
“Of cloaks and shawls and other rags”
which almost always shuts out the first view of the city. The train
stopped, and I alighted to find myself in a square full of coupés
surrounded by a clamorous crowd. A hundred hands are extended for my
valise, a hundred mouths shout in my ear; it is a devilish pack of
porters, cabbies, cicerones, hotel-clerks, guards, and boys. I elbow my
way through them, jump on an omnibus full of people, and am off. We go
down an avenue, cross a great square, turn into a long straight street,
and arrive at the Puerta del Sol.
It is a stupendous sight! A semicircular square of vast extent,
surrounded by high buildings, at the mouth of ten great streets like so
many torrents, from every one of which pours a continuous roaring flood
of people and of vehicles. Everything one sees is in proportion to the
immensity of the place: sidewalks as wide as streets, cafés as wide as
squares, a fountain the size of a lake--on every side a dense,
rapidly-shifting crowd, a discordant roar, a subtle air of cheerfulness
and gaiety in the faces, the gestures, and the colors, which makes one
feel that neither the people nor the city is entirely strange, and gives
one an insane desire to join in the uproar, to salute everybody, to run
here and there, as if one were revisiting those sights and people rather
than seeing them for the first time. I enter a hotel, and leave it
immediately, and begin to wander at random through the city. There are
no grand palaces, no ancient monuments of art, but wide, clean, cheerful
streets, flanked by houses painted in lively colors, and interrupted by
open squares of a thousand different forms, as though they have been
dropped here and there by chance, and in every square there is a garden,
a fountain, and a statuette. Some streets run up hill in such a manner
that on turning into them one sees the sky at the end, and one imagines
that they open into the country, but when one has reached the top
another long street stretches off as far as one can see.
Every little while there are crossways where five, six, and even eight
streets meet, and here there is a continuous stream of carriages and
people passing each other. The walls are covered for long spaces with
show-bills and placards; in the shops there is an incessant coming and
going; the cafés are crowded; everywhere there is the rush of a great
city. Alcalá (Castle) Street, so wide that it looks like a rectangular
square, cuts Madrid in half from the Puerta del Sol eastward, and ends
in a vast park which extends all along one side of the city and contains
gardens, promenades, open squares, theatres, bull-rings, triumphal
arches, museums, palaces, and fountains.
I jumped into a carriage, saying to the driver, “Where you will.” Past
the statue of Murillo, up Alcalá Street, down the Street of the Turk,
where General Prim was assassinated; across the square of the Cortes,
where stands the statue of Miguel Cervantes; through the Plaza Mayor,
where blazed the fires lighted by the Inquisition; and then back again,
past the house of Lope de Vega, out into the vast Plaza del Oriente,
which stretches in front of the royal palace, where towers the
equestrian statue of Philip IV. in the midst of an oval garden
surrounded by forty colossal statues--climbing up toward the centre of
the city, across other wide streets and cheerful squares, and crossways
thronged with people, until finally I return to the hotel, declaring
that Madrid is rich, grand, gay, populous, and attractive, and that I am
going to see it all, and stay and enjoy it so long as my account-book
and the mildness of the season will permit.
In the course of a few days a good friend found me a _casa de
huéspedes_, a guest-house, and I installed myself there. These
guest-houses are nothing else than the homes of families who give board
and lodging to students, artists, and foreigners at prices which vary,
understand, according to the manner in which you choose to eat and
sleep, but which are always lower than the hotel rates, with the
inestimable advantage of breathing the air of home-life, forming
friendships, and being treated as a member of the family rather than as
a boarder. The mistress of the house was a pleasant lady on the hither
side of fifty, the widow of a painter who had studied at Rome, Florence,
and Naples, and who had all his life cherished a grateful and
affectionate remembrance of Italy. She too, as was natural, displayed a
very lively sympathy toward our country, and manifested it by joining me
every day at dinner, when she would recount the life, death, and
miraculous doings of all her relatives and friends, as though I was the
only confidant she had in Madrid. I met few Spaniards who spoke so
rapidly, so frankly, and with such an easy flow of phrases, _bon-mots_,
similes, proverbs, and expressions. At first this disconcerted me, for I
understood little and was every moment obliged to ask her to repeat; nor
was I always able to make myself understood. In a word, it was impressed
upon me that in studying the language of the books I had wasted a great
deal of time in storing my memory with words and phrases which are
seldom used in ordinary conversation, while, on the other hand, I had
neglected very many other forms of speech which are indispensable. I was
obliged, therefore, to begin again, to rally my forces, to make notes,
and, above all, to keep my ear always on the _qui vive_, so that I might
profit as much as possible by the speech of the people. And I was
convinced of this fact: that one may live for ten, thirty, or forty
years in a foreign city, but unless one makes an effort at once, unless
one devotes considerable time to study, unless one is always standing,
as Giusti said, “with one’s eyes wide open,” one will either never learn
to speak the language or will speak it incorrectly. At Madrid I was
acquainted with some old Italians who had lived in Spain from their
earliest youth, and yet they spoke wretched Spanish. Indeed, it is not
an easy language, even for us Italians, or, to speak more clearly, it
presents the great difficulty of easy languages, for it is not allowable
to speak them poorly, and yet by so doing one can make one’s self
understood. The Italian who wishes to speak Spanish in conversation
with cultured people, where every one would understand him if he spoke
French, must justify his audacity by speaking with facility and grace.
Now, the Spanish language, precisely because it is more closely allied
to the Italian than to the French, is also more difficult to speak
rapidly, and, for the same reason, more difficult to speak by ear,
without making awkward mistakes, because, for example, it is much easier
to say _propre_, _mortuaire_, _delice_ (the French words) without danger
of letting slip the Italian _proprio_, _mortuairo_, _delizia_, than it
is to say the Spanish _propio_, _mortuorio_, _delicia_. One falls back
into Italian unconsciously--inverts the syntax every moment, and always
has one’s own language in one’s ear or on one’s tongue, so that one
keeps stammering, confusing words, and betraying one’s self.
Neither is the pronunciation of Spanish less difficult than that of
French. The Moorish, although easy to pronounce, is very difficult when
two _j_’s occur in a word or several of them in a clause. The _y_, which
is pronounced as stutterers pronounce _s_, can only be acquired by
patient effort, for it is a sound which at first proves very unpleasant,
and many who are familiar with the sound do not like to hear it. But if
there is a city in Europe where one is able to acquire the language of a
country thoroughly, that city is Madrid, and the same thing may be said
of Toledo, Valladolid, and Burgos. The people speak as the scholars
write: the differences in the pronunciation of the cultured classes and
the people of the town are very slight.