IV

It is the distinct merit of the Escorial that it does not, and perhaps

cannot take long in doing; otherwise the doer could not bear it. A look

round the sumptuous burial chamber of the sovereigns below the high

altar of the church; a glance at the lesser sepulchral glories of the

infantes and infantas in their chapels and corridors, suffices for the

funereal third of the trinity of tomb and temple and palace; and though

there are gayer constituents of the last, especially the gallery of the

chapter-house, with its surprisingly lively frescoes and its sometimes

startling canvases, there is not much that need really keep you from

the royal apartments which seem the natural end of your visit. Of these

something better can be said than that they are no worse than most other

royal apartments; our guide led us to them through many granite courts

and corridors where we left groups of unguided Americans still maddening

over their Baedekers; and we found them hung with pleasing tapestries,

some after such designs of Goya’s as one finds in the basement of

the Prado. The furniture was in certain rooms cheerily upholstered in

crimson and salmon without sense of color, but as if seeking relief from

the gray of the church; and there are battle-pieces on the walls,

fights between Moors and Christians, which interested me. The dignified

consideration of the custodian who showed us through the apartments

seemed to have adapted to our station a manner left over from the

infrequent presence of royalty; as I have said, the young king of Spain

does not like coming to the Escorial.

I do not know why any one comes there, and I search my consciousness in

vain for a better reason than the feeling that I must come, or would be

sorrier if I did not than if I did. The worthy Howell does not commit

himself to any expression of rejoicing or regretting in having done the

Escorial. But the good Theophile Gautier, who visited the place more

than two hundred years after, owns frankly that he is “excessively

embarrassed in giving his opinion” of it. “So many people,” he says,

“serious and well-conditioned, who, I prefer to think, have never seen

it, have spoken of it as a _chef d’oeuvre,_ and a supreme effort of

the human spirit, so that I should have the air, poor devil of a

_facilletoniste errant,_ of wishing to play the original and taking

pleasure in my contrary-mindedness; but still in my soul and conscience

I cannot help finding the Escorial the most tiresome and the most

stupid monument that could be imagined, for the mortification of his

fellow-beings, by a morose monk and a suspicious tyrant. I know very

well that the Escorial had a serious and religious aim; but gravity

is not dryness, melancholy is not marasm, meditation is not ennui, and

beauty of forms can always be happily wedded to elevation of ideas.”

This is the Frenchman’s language as he goes into the Escorial; he does

not cheer up as he passes through the place, and when he comes out he

has to say: “I issued from that desert of granite, from that monkish

necropolis with an extraordinary feeling of release, of exultation;

it seemed to me I was born into life again, that I could be young once

more, and rejoice in the creation of the good God, of which I had lost

all hope in those funeral vaults. The bland and luminous air wrapt me

round like a soft robe of fine wool, and warmed my body frozen in that

cadaverous atmosphere; I was saved from that architectural nightmare,

which I thought never would end. I advise people who are so fatuous as

to pretend that they are ever bored to go and spend three or four days

in the Escorial; they will learn what real ennui is and they will enjoy

themselves all the rest of their lives in reflecting that they might be

in the Escorial and that they are not.”

That was well toward a century ago. It is not quite like that now,

but it is something like it; the human race has become inured to the

Escorial; more tourists have visited the place and imaginably lightened

its burden by sharing it among their increasing number. Still there is

now and then one who is oppressed, crushed by it, and cannot relieve

himself in such ironies as Gautier’s, but must cry aloud in suffering

like that of the more emotional De Amicis: “You approach a courtyard and

say, ‘I have seen this already.’ No. You are mistaken; it is another....

You ask the guide where the cloister is and he replies, ‘This is it,’

and you walk on for half an hour. You see the light of another world:

you have never seen just such a light; is it the reflection from the

stone, or does it come from the moon? No, it is daylight, but sadder

than darkness. As you go on from corridor to corridor, from court to

court, you look ahead with misgivings, expecting to see suddenly, as you

turn a corner, a row of skeleton monks with hoods over their eyes and

crosses in their hands; you think of Philip II.... You remember all

that you have read about him, of his terrors and the Inquisition; and

everything becomes clear to your mind’s eye with a sudden light; for the

first time you understand it all; the Escorial is Philip II.... He is

still there alive and terrible, with the image of his dreadful God... .

Even now, after so long a time, on rainy days, when I am feeling sad,

I think of the Escorial, and then look at the walls of my room and

congratulate myself.... I see again the courtyards of the Escorial. ...

I dream of wandering through the corridors alone in the dark, followed

by the ghost of an old friar, crying and pounding at all the doors

without finding a way of escape.”

[Illustration: 18 THE PANTHEON OF THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF SPAIN]

I am of another race both from the Frenchman and the Italian, and

I cannot pretend to their experiences, their inferences, and their

conclusions; but I am not going to leave the Escorial to the reader

without trying to make him feel that I too was terribly impressed by it.

To be sure, I had some light moments in it, because when gloom goes too

far it becomes ridiculous; and I did think the convent gardens as I saw

them from the chapter-house window were beautiful, and the hills around

majestic and serious, with no intention of falling upon my prostrate

spirit. Yes, and after a lifelong abhorrence of that bleak king who

founded the Escorial, I will own that I am, through pity, beginning to

feel an affection for Philip II.; perhaps I was finally wrought upon by

hearing him so endearingly called Philly by our guide.

Yet I will not say but I was glad to get out of the Escorial alive; and

that I welcomed even the sulkiness of the landlord of the hotel where

our guide took us for lunch. To this day I do not know why that landlord

should have been so sour; his lunch was bad, but I paid his price

without murmuring; and still at parting he could scarcely restrain his

rage; the Escorial might have entered into his soul. On the way to his

hotel the street was empty, but the house bubbled over with children

who gaped giggling at his guests from the kitchen door, and were then

apparently silenced with food, behind it. There were a great many flies

in the hotel, and if I could remember its name I would warn the public

against it.

After lunch our guide lapsed again to our conductor and reappeared with

his motor-bus and took us to the station, where he overcame the scruples

of the lady in the ticket-office concerning our wish to return to Madrid

by the Sud-Express instead of the ordinary train. The trouble was about

the supplementary fare which we easily paid on board; in fact, there

is never any difficulty in paying a supplementary fare in Spain; the

authorities meet you quite half-way. But we were nervous because we had

already suffered from the delays of people at the last hotel where our

motor-bus stopped to take up passengers; they lingered so long over

lunch that we were sure we should miss the Sud-Express, and we did not

see how we could live in Escorial till the way-train started; yet for

all their delays we reached the station in time and more. The train

seemed strangely reduced in the number of its cars, but we confidently

started with others to board the nearest of them; there we were waved

violently away, and bidden get into the dining-car at the rear of the

train. In some dudgeon we obeyed, but we were glad to get away from

Escorial on any terms, and the dining-car was not bad, though it had a

somewhat disheveled air. We could only suppose that all the places in

the two other cars were taken, and we resigned ourselves to choosing

the least coffee-stained of the coffee-stained tables and ordered

more coffee at it. The waiter brought it as promptly as the conductor

collected our supplementary fare; he even made a feint of removing the

stains from our table-cloth with a flourish of his napkin, and then he

left us to our conjectures and reflections till he came for his pay and

his fee just before we ran into Madrid.