virtuosic power. Jiménez makes of the language an instrument subtle and
intricately ranged, whose farthest flexes yet lie within the natural
genius of Castilian. This is his superiority as a craftsman over his
master, Góngora. Góngora worked as if in minerals. His arabesques were
cut and carved, like the original arabesques, in stone. In Jiménez, the
arabesque is of organic substance: it is traced in flesh, blood, breath.
This makes his work less assured, less sheer than the verse of Góngora
which, after three centuries of misprizal, comes at last, with the work
of his friend El Greco, into its kingdom of appreciation. At first
glance, one doubts that the poetry of Jiménez can live as long: so fine
are its lineaments, so exquisite its reliefs from the organic atmosphere
on which it stands. Flowers of spirit, will they fade like flowers? The
answer is, that such flowers do not fade. To examine this frail prosody,
is to find it made of certainties. Jiménez has lifted from life his
overtones into a form that is life’s natural emergence into
consciousness from the eternal infraconscious flow. His arabesques are
therefore as organic as their base. Jiménez belongs to the race of
Góngora and San Juan de la Cruz--a race of poets who are immortal, and
hermetic.
* * * * *
Again Spain is speaking for the world. This painter and this lyrist, in
the true sense, are _poets_. Their word is a creation, immediate as life
and as eternal: and this conjunction of time and of eternity is birth.
_CHAPTER XIV_
_THE PORT OF COLUMBUS_
_The Scene is a bare height over a little town, white huddled with
shard roofs. Coppery, the río Tinto widens and swirls through sands
into the Gulf of Cádiz. Upon the height, stand two old men,
bare-headed. They are clad in the gentility of their days. But the
cloth is thread, the brocade is dim, the velvet shines and yellow
is the lace. The one is tall. He holds behind his back, martially,
an arm with a crippled hand. He is erect. His features are hard and
large: only his mouth, too delicate and his eyes, tender and dark
as a womb, belie the warrior. The second man is short. Beaked is
his nose, and the eyes have a watery gleam. His hair is silken
white above the swarthy skin. The tall man speaks_:
CERVANTES--Why did you ask that I should meet you here?
COLUMBUS--This is Palos de la Frontera. [_There is a pause in which with
a hard hand he wipes his watery eyes._] From here the first time we
sailed. Here, seven months later, we returned. Bringing back----
CERVANTES--A world.
COLUMBUS--Nay. Bringing back a Grave.
CERVANTES--[_Regarding the town and not_ COLUMBUS’ _words_.]--Here, now,
is nothing.
COLUMBUS--Look beyond the fat sands of the Gulf. Look beyond the sea.
[_They stand in silence toward the west. The low sun swims above the
brooding water, vaults the hard roofs, and lights the shabbiness of the
watchers._]
COLUMBUS--[_Nervously._] Well? Are you looking? Tell me what you see.
CERVANTES--I see America.
COLUMBUS--[_Rubbing his hands in ironic satisfaction._] They robbed it
of my name, because they thought I did not know what I had found. They
robbed me of my kingdom, because they thought I aspired to be a king.
Because my eyes kept watch, they are dim.
CERVANTES--I shall tell you, friend, what I see.
COLUMBUS--Be careful of your eyes!
CERVANTES--A City of White Towers! The men who live in it are little
motes. Yet they uphold these Towers! And in their hand, they wield a
golden weapon making them the world’s master.
COLUMBUS--Look sharp.
CERVANTES--They are not masters of themselves. They are full of
chaos----
COLUMBUS--Spain?
CERVANTES--Within this serried, glittering Order--Chaos! Chaos of races,
traditions, dreams. They are uneasy. They build the Towers higher. The
Towers are high, in order to enclose them safely from their chaos.
Towers of stone, machines of subtle iron--to shut out bloods, dreams,
words, making this Confusion which they hate.
COLUMBUS--[_Smiling shrewdly._] Are you looking at America, or Spain?
CERVANTES--They have lost sight of the True God. Yet they are full of
God-hunger, of God-search. To their own works they turn--and worship God
in these.
COLUMBUS--Look beyond: beyond the Towers.
CERVANTES--[_Heeding only what he sees._] They ban new pioneers! Lusting
for Unity they crush what is not One. They shut out thoughts which might
rise loftier than the highest Towers.
COLUMBUS--[_Chuckling._] Leap from your Spain, I tell you. Beyond the
Towers----?
CERVANTES--Continents!
COLUMBUS--Now you hold me!
CERVANTES--What childish peoples, there! Beyond the Towers one can see
them clearer, although they are the same as those beneath the Towers.
Savages, who can not even speak, who can not even think--who spin about
in quaint machines.
COLUMBUS--Where do you see them?
CERVANTES--Everywhere. Upon two Continents I see them, like an Itch on
the rugose World. Yet within them, there is a world of Desire. I can
hear their clamor; though they use words English, Spanish, Portuguese, I
cannot read their reason. They are dumb as children.
COLUMBUS--They have their Inquisition, I suppose? They drive out the
Infidel? They go to their Cathedrals, and would bind all men in Christ?
CERVANTES--Their names for these are different. And unlike Spain, I see
that they have not succeeded.
COLUMBUS--[_Quickened._] There is my hope! If I could go and tell them:
therein is _their_ hope! They shall not, like Spain, succeed.
CERVANTES--[_Not turning._] Your voice rings glad?
COLUMBUS--Why should I not be glad? The New World is in them, underneath
the Towers. When they have learned that they can not succeed: that all
the Towers and all the machines and all the gold on earth can not crush
down this unborn need in them for a true New World--then it will arise.
CERVANTES--[_turns and looks at_ COLUMBUS.] You speak in Parables.
COLUMBUS--I am a practical man.
CERVANTES--I am sick of parables and stories.
COLUMBUS--Good. You want history? The Book of Moses--is that history
enough for your hard sense? Well, do you recall how the Lord led the
children of Israel out of Egypt? They too crossed a Sea. But did they
come into their promised land, their new world flowing with milk and
honey, when they had crossed the sea?
CERVANTES--Yes. After forty years.
COLUMBUS--You are a shallow reader. Not one came into the Promised
Land--not even Moses! They went into the wilderness, and they died.
From Marah to the wilderness of Sin, from Horeb to the wilderness of
Moab--they roamed, and rotted, and were dead forever! Not Aaron the
Priest, not Miriam the mother, not Moses the Prophet came to the
Promised Land. For it is written that the Seed shall die, ere Life may
be reborn.
CERVANTES--[_Incredulous._] If that is Death yonder across the sea, it
is a death most stable and most splendid.
COLUMBUS--Death is the most sumptuous song. This golden-towered America
is but the Grave of Europe.
CERVANTES--I do not understand.
COLUMBUS--What do you find there?
CERVANTES--Mighty stones----
COLUMBUS--Are not stones of Europe?
CERVANTES--Gold----
COLUMBUS--Is not gold a lust of the old world?
CERVANTES--Marvelous machines----
COLUMBUS--Did you, then, not know England, that you should think them
new?
CERVANTES--Never with us were gold and stone and iron of so high a
glory.
COLUMBUS--Does not Europe merit a high Sepulcher?
CERVANTES--Still you speak in parables, my friend.
COLUMBUS--[_Testily._] What would you have me say? Teach me the words
for the New World, if you have them! Since its gold and its stones and
its machines are unknown to the Old, what words can the old tongues give
us?
[CERVANTES _looks in silence to the west, while the weak eyes of_
COLUMBUS _watch him. Suddenly_, CERVANTES _clutches at the short man’s
arm_.]
CERVANTES--Look! Can’t you see?... No!... God, the Towers are falling!
COLUMBUS--Glory to Jehovah!
CERVANTES--They veer, they twist. They have sunk in this mire of men.
COLUMBUS--The Seed shall rot.
CERVANTES--They are a turmoil of blind maggots. Their world is become
as were their souls--a quicksand. The gleaming Towers are gone!
COLUMBUS--Now shall be the birth of the World which I discovered.
CERVANTES--[_Sternly gazes west in a deep silence. Then he turns to his
friend._] Gone is the city. Continents of chaos. What shall rise?
COLUMBUS--The Dream of the Old World, at last--a New World!
CERVANTES--Spain?
COLUMBUS--Nay. Spain’s Grave is over there, with Europe’s.
CERVANTES--I shall believe your dim eyes. Tell me, mariner, what your
dim eyes see.
COLUMBUS--[_With a laugh._] Then keep your sharp eyes westward.
CERVANTES--[_He turns again, complying, to the west._] It is easy to
look away from Spain, when one has loved Spain.
COLUMBUS--You shall not be alone, in loving Spain.
CERVANTES--Prophetic Spain.
COLUMBUS--Spain which, creating life, has never lived.
CERVANTES--Her fields are shrunken and her eyes are hot.
COLUMBUS--God has begotten on her, and He has passed her by.
CERVANTES--She is a mother.
COLUMBUS--A mother of beginnings.
CERVANTES--Always the Seed in her--never the life itself?
COLUMBUS--It was ever so. When Rome lived, Spain did not live in Rome:
she bore her Stoics and her Saints for Holy Rome. When Holy Rome was
hale, Spain was not holy. She bore, with her Jews and Arabs, the death
of Christ. When Holy Rome was dead and Modern Europe flourished, Spain
was not modern and Spain was not Europe. She bore America.
CERVANTES--Europe has used my mother! Even you, landless mariner, have
used her.
COLUMBUS--God has used her.
CERVANTES--Why then are her fields hungry?
COLUMBUS--All worlds have come in, unto her: of all worlds, she has
begotten worlds. And she has lain untouched.
CERVANTES--My tragic mother.
COLUMBUS--[_Suddenly remembering and exalted._] But the White Towers
have toppled. Ready, Spain! You must stir again. You must give again.
Europe has rotted at last into the Grave they called America. Your work
is not quite done. You, most broken mother of all Europe, you have
preserved a Seed.
... [CERVANTES _has turned from the west, and facing inland, kneels_.
COLUMBUS _does not heed him_.]
COLUMBUS--Your spirit, Spain. They above all will need it, in the north:
they whose speech is English and who have led in the building of the
Towers which are the Grave of Europe. For it is written that these shall
also lead in the birth of the true New World--the true America which I
discovered. Let them see you, Spain; let them take from you, O mother.
For their spirit is weak and childish. They are cowards, not masters,
before life. But you, Spain, dared to be what you believed: you knew the
wisdom of what small men call “madness.” You dared to make of life
itself the Body of your Vision, the Word of your Prayer. You did not
flinch, proud Spain, from being laughed at--from being wrong--from being
right! Give to the New World now your spirit, that it may surpass you.
[_There is a silence, Columbus still facing west, while his comrade
kneels toward Spain._]
CERVANTES--[_Still kneeling and praying._] I understand, my mother, why
we have always loved Our Lady. What this man says is true. Unpossessed,
you have borne a Word. And the Word, even as Christ unto His mother, has
turned and has denied you.
COLUMBUS--[_Lifting_ CERVANTES _up_.] Look again. You are sure? The
White Towers--?
CERVANTES--[_Rises and looks again westward, standing beside_ COLUMBUS.]
The City of Towers is gone.
_As they gaze in silence_, CERVANTES _seeing_, COLUMBUS
_understanding, the sun goes down in the sea. And
over their shoulders to the east, the sky is
suddenly aflame with sunrise._
FINIS
1921-1925
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The so prevalent notion that in Mohammedanism women have no souls
and cannot gain heaven is false.
[2] To the west, sprawls another Fez which the old ruler would not
know. This is Fez-el-Djidid--Fez the New--a Fez of the sixteenth
century. It is a squat, chalk town filled with Bedouin types--Syrians,
Arabs, Negroes, Spaniards, Jews: a conglomerate of squalid shops
and _louche_ cafés. It is like Tangiers, the invaded and corrupted
Moorland. Farther west, there is a third Fez--still stranger. Here are
a railroad station, a wireless tower, and a _garnison_ for “Frankish”
troops. Since 1911--this visitation of the wrath of Allah.
[3] One of a family tracing descent from Mohammed.
[4] Mohammed is generally supposed not to have been able to read; and
his Chapters, brought to him haphazard by the angel Gabriel, were
dictated to his disciples. These chapters (Suras) were not compiled
until after the Prophet’s death.
[5] As mathematics becomes non-Euclidean, it tends toward the
religious. In place of the pagan straight-line, we have the
geodesic-line which meets its source and completes a body for
gravitational and inertial forces.
[6] “The Iberians are the most warlike of all the barbarians.”
Thucydides.
[7] The native women of Seville.
[8] Italian imitations of Tirso were innumerable. Doubtless through
them Molière took his turn. Mozart, Byron, Zorrilla followed. Among the
moderns who have rewritten him is Rostand. Tirso’s real name is Gabriel
Téllez (1571?-1648).
[9] The desire to conform with foreign notions has produced a Spanish
export in which the true genius of the Spanish dance is lost. To see
Seville or Córdoba, you must go to Andalusia. To see the Andalusian
dance, you must do likewise.
[10] Of the many explanations for this strange use of _flamenco_,
that of Federico de Onís strikes me as plausible. He believes that
_flamenco_ was first applied to the dress of Flemish courtiers of
Carlos I. Nobles of Spain imitated these styles; the people of
Andalusia finally adopted them, and so at last _flamenco_ was applied
to the song and dance accompanying a style.
[11] To the reader who fears the difficulty of the old Spanish, I
recommend a modern Castilian version of this perennial poem in which
none of the flavor is lost: it is by Alfonso Reyes, the Mexican poet,
and is published in the _Collección Universal of Madrid_.
[12] It must not be forgotten that the Jesuits of France who
contributed so greatly to the creation of the Catholic strongholds of
Canada were the instruments of a spirit and of a method born in Spain.
[13] Must I assure the reader that this is pure legend? The historical
Cid was probably raiding “on his own” in Valencia when his king, who
had exiled him, entered Toledo.
[14] El Gréco: ou Le Secret de Tolède.
[15] Author of the authoritative life of El Greco, and one of the
world’s few truly great art critics.
[16] Like many other major works of art, the Escorial has its
imperfections. The murals on the vaults of the Church are absurd;
the murals in the cloisters of the Patio de Los Evangelistas are
monstrous; and the pretty interiors of many of the Palace chambers
are impertinent. But the blame for these defects does not lie with
Philip II: they are the deed of successors. There is another flaw in
the Escorial more significant, and miraculously appropriate. It is the
presence of the _San Marcial_ of El Greco in the Salas Capitulares.
Philip ordered this painting; and when it was delivered he disliked
it and refused it admission. The story goes that El Greco insisted on
being paid. Philip paid him and thrust the work into the cellar. It
is customary, on this point, to make sport of the bad taste of the
King. El Greco is the greatest of Spanish painters; the _San Marcial_
is perhaps his greatest picture. But Philip was right. This luminous
and parabolic life did not belong in the frozen rigor of El Escorial.
Today it serves with its gyrant aspirant forms to offset the brooding
stillness in which it lives: a flame in an impenetrable night.
[17] The relatively great importance of honor to women in all lands is
perhaps to be explained by analogue. The inherent social sense in women
(beyond the family sense) is weaker than in men: hence their need of
social approval is the more intense.
[18] There was of course Ramón Lull, the great scholastic poet and
mystic of Majorca.
[19] A. S. Oko, the Hebrew scholar, is certain that the original was
in Italian. José Ortega y Gasset, Professor of metaphysics in the
University of Madrid, assured me of his personal conviction that an
original Castilian MS. was lost.
[20] A mighty lineage of masters who made of the Castilian an immortal
language. Among them are the Dominican Luis de Granada; the Franciscans
Juan de los Angeles, Diego de Estella, San Pedro de Alcántara; the
Carmelites San Juan de la Cruz, Santa Teresa, Jerónimo Gracián, Miguel
de la Fuente; the Augustinians Malon de Chaide, Alonzo de Orozco; and
the Jesuits Nieremberg (Juan Eusebio) and Alonzo Rodríguez.... At the
same time a literary æsthetic was developed (Ausias March, Fernando
de Herrera de Sevilla) whose creative liberality rings refreshingly
modern, beside the poetics of Boileau. Writes Herrera: “So long as a
language lives and is spoken, it cannot be said to have run its course:
for its constant tendency is to surpass itself and to leave behind what
was formerly esteemed. We must constantly essay new forms....” This was
the spirit which made possible El Greco and Góngora and Cervantes. It
was one outcome of the monasteries and of the religious universities of
the Age of Isabel. It proves how strong, in a way, the Renaissance was
in Spain until the reactionary time of Philip II.
[21] The Jansenist belief in predestination and the Jesuit doctrine
of free will appear to contradict this. The paradox is only of the
surface. Acceptance of predestination and of pre-determined grace rests
on acceptance of the inviolable autonomy of the individual soul and
minimizes all objective--i. e., social--effect on it. The Jesuit free
will actually puts the stress on possible change in the individual soul
through social forces, thus minimizing the soul’s autonomy. That this
interpretation is correct is borne out by the developments of Jesuit
practice on the one hand and of French-Calvinist-Protestant cultures on
the other.
[22] “When we lose our dominions, it will be said: You came here to
evangelize and to commit outrage. It will not be said: You came here to
mine coal.” Angel Ganivet.
[23] It must be added that this realistic art, and this realistic
Europe, are doomed today. Cézanne, a disciple of El Greco, marks the
turn of the tide, in the domain of painting.
[24] I hope it will be clear that in these parallels I am suggesting
not identity but analogy. Elements of the Renaissance and of the modern
world definitely distinguish these Spaniards from the true medievals.
The beauty and the irony of the Spanish scene lies precisely in this.
[25] The elements which go to the making of a great _corrida_ in
Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, Zaragoza, San Sebastián, are intricate
and varied. If any of them fails, the consummation fails. The rearing
of perfect bulls is a science in Spain. Only a few preëminent
ranches--_ganaderías de toros bravos_--are equipped to supply them.
They are either in the province of Salamanca or in Andalusia. The
_toreros_ study the bulls in the field, coöperating in their upbring.
Experts breed and train them, and prepare them for their supreme moment
in the sun of the arena. And before the conflict, they are examined by
veterinary surgeons. If they are one jot less than perfect, they may
not enter the ring of a true _corrida_. They are then consigned to the
_corridas de novilleros_: the innumerable encounters of the apprentice
fighters--who must go through several seasons and win the applause of
the most exacting critics ere they are admitted to the rank of _espada_.
Yet despite this care, imperfect bulls (bulls who refuse to fight,
who fight erratically, who flinch at crucial moments) do enter the
best _corrida_ and blot out the artistry of the most expert _matador_.
Indeed, the skill of the _torero_ lies in great measure in his ability
to control the bull. The genuine artist must possess hypnotic power.
He must compel him in the instant of confrontation to forget the
multitude, the flashing _capas_, the _banderillas_ that bite his flesh:
to concentrate upon his own frail grace all the bull’s hate and all the
bull’s vigor. He must compel a brute to be the partner of an exquisite
dancer.
He must control his own body as perfectly as any artist on a stage.
Utter purity of form, of pace, of measure must be preserved within this
threat of death. There is no virtuosity like this in all the world.
Beyond is the crowd, not at all loth to seeing him undone: before him,
_his colleague_, is a maddened bull whose horns are more terrible than
swords. He must control the crowd; he must model the lunges of the
brute into the design of an essential dance. And all this he must do in
coolness.
The _torero_ who can achieve this, not one time in a career but with
reasonable frequency, and before the most savagely critical--and the
most savage--audience in the world, comes not often in a decade’s
passing. Most _toreros_ are at the mercy of the bull. If he behaves
they acquit themselves with credit. If he baulks, they must trust to
luck--to the saving _capas_ of the _banderilleros_--even to their
heels. Hisses are more frequent in the _plaza_ than cheers.
All artists must labor against the inclement will of their materials.
The temper of the bull, the action of the _cuadro de_ _banderilleros_,
the mood of the crowd present the common problem of technique. What
distinguishes the art of the _torero_ is the immediacy of death. If the
dancer slips, he fails and that is all: if the acrobat misses, he lands
in a net: if the actor forgets his line, he hears the prompter. If the
_torero_ makes a false step, he is dead.
And the _corrida_ will go on without him! for he is never alone. But
he is alone with his skill and with his nerve. The slightest trace of
haste or sign of fear will spoil the pure line of his style. If for an
instant he breaks from the perfection of his pose to save his life, he
loses his art. And if in that moment he elects rather to hold to his
art, he may not live to reap its glory.
In recent years, two _toreros_ of genius have arisen in Spain. One,
Joselito, died on the horns of the bull: and the _corrida_ went on
despite the mourning of the nation. Joselito shared with Belmonte
the summit of his art. He was an Apollonian classicist. Chance and
inspiration were reduced to a minimum. He had control over the brute:
but it appeared to be less of hypnosis than of reason. He operated on
the bull with so cool an accuracy that the infuriated beast was soothed
into an obedient opposition to the _torero_. Joselito was exact,
unostentatious. But when he had coupled with his enemy, his art became
ornate. He moved facilely, he gave delicate steps. When he was killed
in Valencia, Spain lost the most exquisite if not the profoundest of
her tragic dancers.
Nature has aided Belmonte with its abstruse law of compensation for
inferiorities. In this abnormally frail body live courage, rhythmic
articulation, dionysian gesture. When Belmonte steps out to meet his
bull the mind falls into heroic channels. For the head is brooding. And
when, as once when I saw him, there is a white bandage across the brow
with a touch of blood upon it, the effect is magic.
Belmonte at his worst is an ugly boy vaguely at odds with an unwieldy
task. At his best, he is the propounder of rapture. He does not
abstract the individuality of the bull like Joselito, and then perform
his cold objective art. He measures the foe. He accepts him as he is.
He plunges into the bull’s fury. And thence, he rises to his high
victory. There is always a moment in Belmonte’s act when he is lost.
The crowd gasps. Gone altogether beneath the fury of the brute, he
emerges. His body sways in the prepossessive grace of one who has come
through death. His art is perhaps greater than that of Joselito because
its content is greater. Joselito excluded from his victory the reality
of defeat. Psychologically, he crushed his foe first, and then worked
on him at ease. Belmonte begins by submitting to the bull’s might. And
then, from this submission of the man, from this faltering of the god,
he creates a form sculpturally superb.
[26] In the winter of 1924 the Dictator of Spain, Primo de Rivera, on
his own initiative conferred the municipal suffrage upon women. They
did not agitate for it; and it seems clear that if they exercise this
new privilege it will be in the same spirit of compliance with which
they accede to all the demands of men.
[27] This statement is not literally correct. The Basques became
eminent navigators in the sixteenth century; their American settlements
ranged from Canada to the Argentine. Yet, intellectually and
spiritually, they remained, as a people, rooted.
[28] The Basque language.