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.
And, even leaving these four cities out of the question, the Spanish
language is much more used and much more common, and consequently much
more vigorous and forcible, in the daily press, on the stage, and in the
popular literature than is the case with the Italian language. There are
in Spain the Valencian, the Catalan, the Galician, and the Murcian
dialects and the very ancient language of the Basque provinces. But
Spanish is spoken in the two Castiles, in Arragon, in Estremadura, and
in Andalusia; that is, in the five great provinces. The squib enjoyed at
Saragossa is enjoyed at Seville also; the popular phrase which makes a
hit in the theatres of Salamanca produces the same effect in the
theatres of Granada. They say that the Spanish of to-day is not at all
the language of Cervantes, Quevedo, and Lope de Vega; that the French
have corrupted it; that if Charles V. should come to life again, he
would no longer call it “the language to speak with God;” and that
Sancho Panza would not be understood and enjoyed. Alas! he who has
frequented the little cook-shops and the low-rates theatre of the
suburbs unwillingly acquiesces in this sentence.
To pass from the tongue to the palate, one needs a little good-will to
accustom one’s self to certain sauces, gravies, and poor soups of the
Spanish cuisine, but I accustomed myself to them. The French, who are as
fussy in the matter of eating as spoiled children, invoke the wrath of
Heaven upon it. Dumas says that in Spain he has suffered from hunger. In
a book on Spain which was lately before my eyes it was stated that the
Spanish live only on honey, fungi, eggs, and snails. But this is all
stuff and nonsense. The same might be said of our cooking. I have known
many Spaniards whose stomachs were turned by the sight of maccaroni and
gravy. They make most too many potpies, they do not know how to use fat,
and they season a little too highly, but hardly enough to take away
Dumas’s appetite, and, among other things, they are master-hands at
sweets.
Then their puchero, the national dish, eaten every day by everybody in
every place—I speak the truth, I ate it like an out-and-out
glutton,—the puchero is to the culinary art what the anthology is to
literature, a little of the best of everything. A good piece of boiled
beef forms the nucleus of the dish, and around this a wing of a fowl, a
slice of chorizo (sausage), lard, herbs, and bacon, and, above and
below and in all the interstices, garbanzos. Epicures pronounce the
name of garbanzos with reverence. They are a sort of chick-pea, very
large, very tender, and very succulent—peas, an extravagant man might
say, that have fallen down from some world where a vegetation equal to
ours is made fruitful by a stronger sun. Such is the ordinary puchero.
But every family modifies it according to its purse. The poor are
content with meat and garbanzos. The rich add a hundred exquisite
tidbits. After all, it is a dinner rather than a dish, and very many eat
nothing else.
A good puchero and a bottle of Val de Peñas are enough to satisfy
any one. I say nothing of the oranges, the Malaga grapes, asparagus,
artichokes, and every sort of vegetable and fruit, which, as every one
knows, are very fine and good in Spain. Nevertheless, the Spanish are
small eaters, and because the pepper and highly-seasoned sauces and salt
meats predominate in their cuisine, because they eat chorizos
(sausages), which, as they say, levantan las piedras, or rather burn
their intestines, they drink very little wine. After the fruit, instead
of beginning to sip a good bottle, they usually take a cup of coffee and
milk, and they rarely drink wine in the morning. At the table d’hote in
the hotels I have never seen a Spaniard empty a bottle, while I, who
emptied mine, was stared at in astonishment, as though I was a
scandalous beast. One rarely meets a drunken man in a Spanish city, even
on a holiday, and on this account, when one considers their hot blood
and the very free use they make of knives and daggers, there occur fewer
fights which lead to death or bloodshed than is generally believed
outside of Spain.
As I had found board and lodging, there remained nothing else for me to
do but wander through the city with the Guidebook in my pocket and a
tres-cuartos cigar in my mouth—“an occupation easy and
straightforward.”
During the first days I could not keep away from the plaza of the Puerta
del Sol. I would stay there hour after hour, and was so amused by it
that I could willingly have spent days there. The square is worthy of
its fame, not so much for its size and beauty as for the people, the
life, the variety of scene which it presents at every hour of the day.
It is not a square like other squares: it is at once a great
reception-hall, a promenade, a theatre, an academy, a garden, a
parade-ground, and a bazaar. From the peep of day until after midnight
it contains one stationary crowd, and another crowd that comes and goes
through the ten great streets which meet there, and all the while a
procession and intermingling of carriages which make one’s head whirl.
Business-men congregate there; there gather the demagogues who have
nothing to do, unemployed clerks, old pensioners, and young dandies;
there they talk business and politics, make love, promenade, read the
papers, dun their debtors, search for their friends, hatch plots against
the ministry, coin the false reports which make the round of Spain, and
weave the scandalous chronicle of the city.
On the sidewalks, which are wide enough to hold four carriages abreast,
one is obliged to force one’s way. In a space no larger than a flagstone
you see a civil guard, a matchseller, a broker, a beggar, and a soldier,
all in a bunch. Troops of scholars pass servants, generals, ministers,
peasants, toreros, and gentlemen. Ruined spendthrifts ask for alms in
a whisper, so as not to be discovered; lewd wretches look at you with
questioning eyes; women lightly nudge you on the elbow; on every side
there are hats in the air, smiles, shaking of hands, cheery greetings,
cries of “Largo!” from the laden porters and from the hawkers with
their wares hanging about their necks; the shouts of newsboys, the
shrill cry of the water-carrier, the tooting of the coach-horns, the
cracking of whips, the clank of swords, the tinkling of guitars, and the
songs of blind beggars. There regiments pass with bands of music; the
king passes; the square is sprinkled with great jets of water, which
cross in the air; men go by carrying placards to advertise the shows;
swarms of gamins with their arms full of extra editions; then an army of
government clerks; the bands of music pass again; lights appear in the
shops; the crowd grows denser; the blows on the elbow become more
frequent; the voices grow louder; the uproar and commotion increase. It
is not the activity of a busy people: it is the vivacity of a
high-spirited race; it is a Carnival gaiety, an idleness that cannot
rest and overflows in a feverish desire for pleasure, which seizes one
and holds him fast or drives him around like a reel and forbids him to
leave the square—a curiosity which never wearies, a happy desire to be
amused, to think of nothing, to talk small talk, to stroll about and
laugh. Such is the famous plaza of the Puerta del Sol.
An hour spent there is enough to make one familiar with the people of
Madrid in their various aspects. The common people dress like those of
our great cities; the upper classes, when they lay aside the cloak which
is worn in winter, are attired in the Parisian mode; and from the duke
to the clerk, from the stripling to the tottering old man, they are all
neat and tastefully dressed, bepowdered and perfumed, as though they had
just stepped out of a toilet-room. In this respect they resemble the
Neapolitans with their fine heads of black hair, their carefully-trimmed
beards, and their feminine hands and feet. One rarely sees a low hat:
they all wear high hats. Then there are canes, chains, ornaments, pins
and ribbons in their buttonholes by the thousand.
Except on certain holidays the ladies also dress like the French. The
women of the middle classes still wear the mantilla, but the ancient
satin shoes, the peineta, the bright colors—the national costume, in
a word—have disappeared. They are, however, the same little women, so
praised for their large eyes, their tiny hands, and small feet, with
jet-black hair, a skin that is rather fair than dark, well formed, of
good carriage, active, and vivacious.
In order to view the fair sex of Madrid one should go to the promenade
of the Prado, which is to Madrid what the Cascine are to Florence.
The Prado, to be precise, is a very wide avenue, of no great length,
flanked by smaller avenues which run toward the eastern part of the
city. It lies beside the famous gardens of Buen Retiro, and is closed
at both ends by two enormous stone vases, the one surmounted by a
colossal Cybele sitting on a shell and drawn by sea-horses; the other,
by a Neptune of equal size, both of them crowned with copious fountains,
whose waters interlace and fall gracefully with a pleasant murmur.
This great avenue, lined along the sides with thousands of chairs and
hundreds of benches, where men sell water and oranges, is the most
frequented part of the Prado, and is called the Salon del Prado. But
the walk extends beyond the fountain of Neptune: there are other
avenues, other fountains, and other statues, and one may walk among the
trees and fountains as far as Our Lady of Atocha, the famous church
loaded with gifts by Isabella II. after the outrage of February 2, 1852,
and where King Amadeus went to visit the body of General Prim. From that
point there is an extended view of a vast tract of the desert plain
around Madrid and of the snowy summits of the Guadarrama. But the Prado
is the most
![[Image not available: Fountain of Cybele, Alcalá, Madrid]](https://openoldbooks.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/books/spain-vol-1-2/images/illus-b166c_sml.jpg)
Fountain of Cybele, Alcalá, Madrid
famous, not the most beautiful nor the largest, promenade in the city.
Beyond the Salon, toward the fountain of Cybele, the promenade of
Recoletos extends for almost two miles, flanked on the right by the
large, cheerful town of Salamanca, the home of the rich, of the
deputies, and the poets, and on the left by a long chain of small
palaces, villas, theatres, and new buildings painted in vivid colors. It
is not a single promenade: there are ten avenues, one beside another,
and each more beautiful than the last—streets for driving, streets for
riding, walks for persons who like a crowd, and walks for those who
prefer to be alone, divided from each other by endless hedges of myrtle,
bordered and broken by gardens and groves, in which appear statues and
fountains, and little footpaths which cross each other. On fête-days one
may there enjoy a charming spectacle. From one end of the avenues to the
other pass two processions of people, carriages, and horsemen, going in
opposite directions.
In the Prado one can scarcely walk. The gardens are crowded by thousands
of boys; the theatres are full of music; every one hears the murmur of
fountains, the swish of skirts, the shouting of children, and the
cantering of horses. It is not only the movement and the gaiety of a
promenade: it is the pomp, the uproar, the confusion, the feverish
delight of a fête. The city is deserted during those hours. At dusk the
whole of that immense crowd turns back into the great Alcalá Street,
and then from the fountain of Cybele, as far as the Puerta del Sol, one
sees only a sea of heads, furrowed by a line of carriages as far as the
eyes can reach.
For promenades—and, in fact, for theatres and spectacular
exhibitions—Madrid is, without doubt, one of the first cities of the
world. Besides the great opera-house, which is very large and rich,
besides the theatre for comedy, the theatre of the Zarzuela, the Madrid
circus—all of which are first class in point of size, appointments, and
attendance—there is a circle of smaller theatres for dramatic
companies, for equestrian exhibitions, musical organizations, and
vaudevilles—parlor theatres, theatres with boxes and galleries,
theatres, big and little, for high and low, to suit all purses and all
tastes, and for all hours of the night; and there is not one among so
many that is not crowded at every performance.
Then there are the cock-pits, the bull-rings, the popular balls, and the
games. Some days there are as many as twenty different entertainments,
commencing at noon and continuing almost to dawn. The opera, of which
the Spanish are passionately fond, is always magnificent, not only at
the time of the Carnival, but at all seasons. While I was at Madrid,
Fricci sang at the Zarzuela and Stagno at the circus; both were
supported by very able artists, with excellent orchestra and splendid
stage-setting.
The most celebrated singers in the world make an effort to sing in the
capital of Spain, for artists are there sought after and fêted. The
passion for music is the only one which is able to hold its own against
the passion for bull-fights. Comedy is in great vogue also.
L’Hatzembuch, Breton de los Herreros, Tamayo, Ventura, D’Ayala,
Gutiérrez, and a great many other dramatic writers, some living and some
dead, who are known even beyond Spain, have enriched the modern stage by
a large number of comedies, which, although they do not bear that strong
national stamp which has immortalized the dramatic works of the great
century of Spanish literature, are nevertheless full of life, wit, and
cleverness, without the unwholesome tendency of the French comedy. But,
although they perform modern comedies, they are not unmindful of the
old. On the anniversaries of Lope de Vega, Calderón, Morito, Tirso de
Molina, Alarcon, Francesco de Rojas, and the other great lights of the
Spanish theatre their masterpieces are performed with solemn pomp. The
actors, however, do not seem able to satisfy the authors, and show the
defects of our own actors—too much action, ranting, and excessive
sobbing. Many even prefer our actors, because they find in them a
greater variety of cadence and inflection. Besides tragedy and comedy,
they perform a dramatic composition that is thoroughly Spanish—the
zainete, of which Ramon de la Cruz was the master. It is a sort of
farce which in great part consists of tableaux of Andalusian costumes,
with national and popular characters, and actors who imitate the dress,
speech, and customs of the period in an admirable manner. The comedies
are all published, and are eagerly read even by the lowest classes, and
the names of the authors are very popular. Dramatic literature, in a
word, remains to-day, as it was in former times, the richest and most
general.
There is also a great passion for the zarzuela, which is usually
represented in the theatre to which it has given the name, and is a
composition midway between comedy and melodrama, between opera and
vaudeville, with an easy interchange of prose and verse, of recitation
and singing, of the serious and burlesque—a composition exclusively
Spanish and very delightful. In some theatres they perform political
comedies, a mixture of song and prose after the style of Scalvini’s
“reviews;” satirical farces to take off the questions of the day; a sort
of sacred tableaux, with scenes from the Passion of Our Lord, during
Holy Week; and balls and dances and pantomimes of every sort.
In the small theatres they give three or four performances a night, one
after the other, and new spectators come in for each performance. At
the famous Capellanes Theatre every night in the year they dance a
can-can, scandalous beyond the wildest imagination, and there crowd
the dissolute young men, the fast women, and the old libertines with
wrinkled noses, armed with monocles, spectacles, opera-glasses, and
every sort of optical instrument which helps to bring nearer the forms
advertised on the stage, as Aleardi says.
After the theatres are closed one finds all the cafés crowded, the city
illuminated, the streets filled with countless carriages, just as in the
early evening. One feels a little sad on coming out of a theatre in a
foreign country, there are so many beautiful creatures, and not one of
them deigns to bestow so much as a glance upon one. But an Italian finds
one comfort in Madrid. The actors almost always sing Italian operas, and
they sing in Italian, and so, as you return to your lodging, you hear
them humming in the words of your own language the airs which you have
known from infancy. You hear a palpito here, a fiero genitor there,
a tremenda vendetta yonder; and these words are like the greetings of
a friendly people. But to reach your house what a thick hedge of
petticoats you must climb over! The palm is given to Paris, and
doubtless she deserves it, but Madrid is not to be laughed at. What
boldness! what words of fire! what imperious provocations! Finally, you
arrive before your house to find that you have no door-key.
“Do not be disturbed,” says the first citizen you meet. “Do you see that
lantern at the foot of the street? The man who carries it is a sereno,
and the serenos have keys for all the houses.” Then you cry “Sereno!”
at the top of your voice, and the lantern approaches, and a man with an
enormous bunch of keys in his hands gives you a searching glance, opens
the door, lights you to the second story, and bids you good-night. So it
is every night; for a franc a month you escape the annoyance of carrying
the door-key in your pocket. The sereno is a public officer, and there
is one in every street, and each of them has a whistle. If the house
takes fire or thieves force your lock, you have only to throw up a
window and cry, “Sereno! help!” The sereno who is in the street sounds
his whistle, the serenos of the neighboring streets whistle, and in a
few moments all the serenos in the district run to your assistance. At
whatever hour of the night you awake you hear the voice of the sereno
announcing the time, or if it is fine weather, or if it is raining or
going to rain. How many things he knows! and how many he never tells!
this nocturnal sentinel. How many whispered farewells he hears from the
lips of lovers! How many little letters flutter from the windows before
his eyes! how many little keys fall on the pavement! and how many hands
wave mysteriously in the air! Muffled lovers glide through narrow
doorways, and lighted windows are suddenly darkened, and black shadows
vanish along the walls at the first streaks of dawn.
I have spoken only of the theatres; at Madrid there is a concert, one
may safely say, every day. There are concerts in the theatres, concerts
in the academy halls, concerts in the streets, and then a company of
strolling musicians who deafen you at all hours of the day. After all
this one has a right to ask why it is that a people so infatuated with
music that it seems as necessary, so to speak, as the air they breathe,
have never produced any great master of the art. The Spanish will not be
comforted.
One could cover many pages if he were to describe the fine suburbs of
Madrid, the gates, the parks beyond the city, the squares, the historic
streets; and, if nothing were willingly to be omitted, the splendid
cafés, the “Imperial” in the square of the Puerto del Sol and the
Fornos in Alcalá Street, two vast saloons, in which, if the tables
were removed, a company of dragoons could be drilled, and the
innumerable other cafés which one finds at every step, where two hundred
dancers could be easily accommodated; the magnificent shops which occupy
the entire ground-floor of vast buildings, and among them the great
Havana tobacco warehouse (a meeting-place for gentlemen), filled with
cigars, little and big, round, flat, pointed, and twisted, winding like
snakes, bent like bows, hook-shaped, of every shape, for every taste,
and at every price, enough to content the maddest fancy of a smoker and
to stupefy the entire population of a city; spacious markets; the grand
royal palace, in which the Quirinal and the Pitti Palace might hide
without fear of discovery; the great street Atocha, which crosses the
city; the immense garden of Buen Retiro, with its great lake, with its
hills crowned with Moorish domes, and its thousands of rare birds....
But, worthy of attention above everything else, the museums of armor and
painting, and the Naval Museum, to each of which one might easily
dedicate a volume.
The armory of Madrid is one of the most beautiful in the world. As you
enter the vast hall your heart gives a leap, your blood tingles, and you
stand still on the threshold like one demented. A complete army of
cavalry in full armor, with drawn swords and lances in rest, gleaming
and terrible, rushes toward you like a legion of spectres. It is an army
of emperors, kings, and dukes, clad in the most splendid armor that has
ever left the hands of man, upon which pours a flood of light from
eighteen enormous windows, producing a marvellous play and flashing of
light, dancing sunbeams, and dazzling colors. The walls are covered with
cuirasses, swords, halberds, jousting-spears, huge blunderbusses, and
enormous lances which reach from the floor to the ceiling. Banners of
all the armies of the world hang from the ceiling—trophies of Lepanto,
of San Quintino, of the War of Independence, of the wars of Africa,
Cuba, and Mexico. On every side there is a profusion of glorious
standards, of illustrious arms, of marvellous works of art, of effigies,
emblems, and immortal names.
One does not know what first to admire. One runs first here, then there,
looking at everything and seeing nothing, and becomes tired before one
has really begun. In the middle of the hall is the equestrian armor, the
cavaliers and their horses, drawn up in line by threes and by twos, and
all wheeling just like a squadron on the march. Among the arms one at
first sight discovers those of Philip II., of Charles V., Philibert
Emmanuel, and Christopher Columbus. Here and there, on pedestals, one
sees helmets, casques, morions, gorgets, and shields which belonged to
kings of Arragon, Castile, and Navarre, adorned with very fine reliefs
in silver representing battles, mythological subjects, symbolic figures,
trophies, grotesques, and garlands: some of these are works of the
greatest power, the workmanship of the most famous artists of Europe;
others are uncouth in form, with excessive ornament, with crests,
visors, and colossal top-pieces. Then there are the little helmets and
cuirasses of princes, swords and shields the gifts of popes and
monarchs. In the midst of the knightly armor one sees statues dressed in
the fantastic costumes of the American Indians, of Africans, and of
Chinese, with feathers and bells, bows and quivers; then, too, horrible
warmasks and the dresses of mandarins of gold woven with silk. Along
the walls is other armor—the arms of the marquis de Pescara, of the
poet Garcilasso de la Vega, of the marquis de Santa Cruz, the gigantic
armor of John Frederick, the magnanimous duke of Saxony, and scattered
here and there are Arabian, Persian, and Moorish banners falling to
decay.
In the glass cases there is a collection of swords which make your blood
run cold when you hear the names of those who wielded them—the sword of
the prince de Conde, the sword of Isabella the Catholic, the sword of
Philip II., the sword of Hernando Cortez, of the count-duke d’Olivares,
of John of Austria, of Gonzalez of Cordova, of Pizarro; the sword of the
Cid, and, a little farther along, the helmet of King Boabdil of Granada,
the shield of Francis I., and the camp-chair of Charles V. In a corner
of the hall are arranged the trophies of the Ottoman armies—helmets
studded with gems, spurs, gilded stirrups, the collars of slaves,
daggers, scimitars in velvet sheaths, with rings of gold, embroidered
and inlaid with pearl; the spoils of Ali Pacha, who was slain on the
flag-ship at the battle of Lepanto, his caftan brocaded with gold and
silver, his girdle, sandals, and shields, the spoils of his sons, and
the banners stripped from the galleys. On another side are votive
crowns, crosses, and the necklaces of Gothic princes. In another room
are articles taken from the Indians of Mariveles, the Moors of Cagyan
and Mindanao, and the savages of the most remote islands of Oceanica;
collars of snail-shells, stone pipes, wooden idols, reed flutes;
ornaments made of the claws of insects; slaves’ garments made of
palm-leaves with characters scribbled on them to serve as fetiches;
poisoned arrows and axes of the executioners. And then, wherever one
turns, there are royal saddles, coats of mail, culverins, historic
drums, shoulder-belts, inscriptions, memorials and images of every time
and every land, from the fall of the Goths to the battle of Tetuan, from
Mexico to China—a storehouse of treasures and of masterpieces from
which one goes out amazed and exhausted, to return to consciousness as
if it were a dream, with one’s memory weary and confused.
If a great Italian poet shall one day wish to sing the discovery of the
New World, nowhere will he be able to find so powerful an inspiration as
in the Naval Museum of Madrid, because in no other place will he feel so
profoundly the original air of the American wilderness and the subtle
presence of Columbus. There is a room called the “Cabinet of
Discoveries:” the poet on entering this room, if he really has the soul
of a poet, will reverently uncover his head. Wherever one’s glance falls
in the room one sees an image which stirs his blood. One is no longer in
Europe nor in the century; one is in the America of the fifteenth
century; one breathes that air, one sees those places, and lives that
life. In the middle is a high trophy of the arms taken from the Indians
of the newly-discovered land—shields covered with the skins of wild
beasts, arrows of cane with feathered notches, wooden swords with
sheaths woven of twigs, with hilts ornamented with horsehair, and
scalp-locks falling in long streamers; clubs, spears, enormous axes,
great swords with teeth like those of a saw, shapeless sceptres,
gigantic quivers, garments of monkey-skin, dirks of kings and
executioners, arms of the savages from Cuba, Mexico, New Caledonia, the
Carolinas, and the most distant islands of the Pacific—black, uncouth,
and horrible, suggesting to the imagination confused visions of terrible
struggles in the mysterious shadows of the virgin forest, in an endless
labyrinth of unknown trees. Among the spoils of the savage world are
pictures and memorials of the Conquerors: here the portrait of Columbus,
there that of Pizarro, farther on that of Hernando Cortez; on one of the
walls the map of America by Juan de la Cosa, drawn during the second
voyage of the Genoese upon an ample canvas dotted with figures, colors,
and signs which were intended to direct expeditions into the interior of
the country. Near the map is a bit of the tree under which the conqueror
of Mexico lay on that famous “night of sorrow” after he had opened a
passage through the immense army that awaited his coming in the valley
of Otumba; also a vase turned from the trunk of the tree near which the
celebrated Captain Cook died; models of the canoes, boats, and rafts
used by the natives; a circle of portraits of illustrious navigators, in
the middle of which is a large painting of the three ships of
Christopher Columbus, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, at the
moment when America was discovered, with all the sailors standing on the
decks waving their arms and cheering lustily, greeting the new land and
giving thanks to God. There is no word which expresses the emotion which
one feels at the sight of that spectacle, no tear worth that which then
trembles on the eyelash, no soul that does not at that moment feel
itself ennobled.
The other rooms, of which there are ten, are also full of precious
objects. In the room next to the Cabinet of Discoveries there are
collected the relics of the battle of Trafalgar—the painting of the
Holy Trinity which was in the cabin of the “Royal Trinidad,” and which
was rescued by the English a few minutes before the ship went to the
bottom; the hat and sword of Frederick de Gravina, the admiral of the
Spanish fleet, who was killed that day; a large model of the Santa Anna,
one of the few ships that escaped from the battle; banners and portraits
of admirals, and paintings which depict episodes of that tremendous
struggle. And besides the relics of Trafalgar there are many other
things which affect the mind no less powerfully, as a chalice of wood
from the tree called ceiba, in whose shade was celebrated the first
mass at Havana, on the 19th of March, 1519; Captain Cook’s cane; idols
of the savages; flint chisels with which the Indians of Porto Rico
fashioned their idols before the discovery of the island. And beyond
this there is another great room where, on entering, one finds one’s
self in the midst of a fleet of galleys, caravels, feluccas,
brigantines, sloops, and frigates—ships of all seas and of all ages,
armed, gayly decked, and provisioned, so that they need only a wind to
put to sea and scatter to all parts of the world. In the other rooms
there is an exhibition of machinery, ordnance, and naval armor;
paintings which represent all the maritime exploits of the Spanish
people; more portraits of admirals, navigators, and mariners; trophies
from Asia, America, Africa, and Oceanica, crowded and piled one above
another, so that one must pass them on the run to see everything before
nightfall. On coming out of the Naval Museum it seems as if you are just
returning from a voyage around the world, so much have you lived in
those few hours.
There is also at Madrid a large museum of artillery, an immense museum
of the industrial arts, a fine archeological museum, a remarkable museum
of natural history, as well as a thousand other things that are worth
seeing; but it is necessary, however, to sacrifice the description of
them for the marvellous Museum of the Fine Arts.
The day on which one enters for the first time a museum like that of
Madrid forms a landmark in a man’s life. It is an important event, like
marriage, the birth of a child, or the entrance upon an inheritance; for
one feels the effect of it to the end of one’s life. And this is true
because a museum like that of Madrid or that of Florence or that of Rome
is a world: a day passed within its walls is a year of life: a year of
life stirred by all the passions which are able to animate one in real
life: love, religion, patriotism, glory; a year of life in the enjoyment
it gives, in the instruction it imparts, in the thoughts it suggests, in
the pleasure to be derived from its memory in the future; a year of life
in which one reads a thousand volumes, feels a thousand sensations, and
meets with a thousand adventures. These thoughts were in my mind as I
approached with rapid steps the Museum of the Fine Arts, situated to the
left of the Prado as one comes from the street Alcalá; and so great was
my pleasure that on reaching the doorway I stopped and said to myself,
“Let us see: what have you ever done in your life to deserve an entrance
here? Nothing! Well, then, on that day when some misfortune comes upon
you bow your head and consider that your account is balanced.”
As I entered I unconsciously raised my hat: my heart beat fast and a
slight shiver ran through me from head to foot. In the first room there
are only some large paintings of Luca Giordano. I passed them by. In the
second I was no longer myself, and, instead of staying to look at
paintings one by one, I postponed that examination and made the circuit
of the gallery almost on the run. In the second room there are some
paintings of Goya, the last great Spanish painter; in the third, which
is as large as a square, are masterpieces of the great masters. On
entering you see on one side the Madonnas of Murillo, on the other the
saints of Ribera; a little farther on, the portraits of Velasquez; in
the middle of the hall, paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, Andrea del
Sarto, and at the end those of Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese,
Correggio, Domenichino, and Guido Reni. You turn back and enter a great
room to the right. There you see at the end other paintings of Raphael;
on the right and left, more of Velasquez, Titian, and Ribera; opposite
the entrance, Rubens, Van Dyck, Fra Angelico, and Murillo. Another is
devoted to the French school—Poussin, Daguet, Lorraine. In two other
rooms of vast size the walls are covered with paintings of Breughel,
Teniers, Jordaens, Rubens, Durer, Schoen, Mongs, Rembrandt, and Bosch.
In the other rooms, of equal size, there is a medley of the works of
Joanes, Carbajal, Herrera, Luca Giordano, Carducci, Salvator Rosa,
Menendez, Cano, and Ribera.
You walk for an hour and have seen nothing. For the first hour a war is
waging: the masterpieces struggle for the possession of your soul. The
Conception of Murillo blots out Ribera’s Martyrdom of Saint
Bartholomew with a flood of light; Ribera’s Saint James obliterates
Joanes’ Saint Stephen; Titian’s Charles V. dooms the Count-Duke de
Olivares of Velasquez; Raphael’s Pasmo de Sicilia casts all the
paintings around it in the shade; the Drunkards of Velasquez, with
their reflection of bacchanalian joy, somewhat disconcert the faces of
the neighboring saints and princes; Rubens overthrows Van Dyck; Paolo
Veronese triumphs over Tiepolo, and Goya kills Madrazo.
The conquered turn against those still weaker than themselves, or in
their turn win lesser victories over their conquerors. It is a struggle
of the miracles of art, in the midst of which one’s restless soul
trembles like a flame fanned by a thousand gusts of wind, and one’s
heart expands with a sense of pride in the power of the genius of man.
When the first enthusiasm has subsided one begins to admire. In the
midst of an army of such artists, each of whom would require a volume
for himself, I restrict myself to the Spaniards, and among these to the
painters who aroused within me the most profound admiration and whose
canvases I remember most distinctly. The most recent of these is Goya,
who was born toward the end of the last century. As a painter he is the
most Spanish of the Spaniards, the painter of toreros, of the people,
of contrabandists, hags, and robbers, of the War of Independence, and of
that old Spanish life which melted away before his very eyes. He was a
fiery son of Arragon, of iron temper, passionately devoted to
bull-fights, so that even in the closing years of his life, when he was
living at Bordeaux, he was accustomed to come once a week to Madrid with
no other reason than to witness those spectacles; and he would go back
like an arrow, not even so much as saluting his friends. A genius
rigorous, cynical, imperious, awe-inspiring—who in the heat of his
violent inspirations would in a few moments cover a wall or a canvas
with figures, giving the finishing touches with whatever came to
hand—sponges, brooms, or sticks; who in sketching the face of a person
whom he hated would insult it; who painted a picture as he would have
fought a battle; very bold in composition, an original strong colorist,
the creator of an inimitable style, with frightful shadows, hidden
lights, and resemblances distorted and yet true to life. He was a great
master in the expression of all terrible effects of anger, hate,
desperation, and the thirst for blood; an athletic, turbulent,
indefatigable painter; a naturalist like Velasquez, fantastical like
Hogarth, vigorous like Rembrandt, the last ruddy spark of Spanish
genius. There are several of his paintings in the museum of Madrid,
![[Image not available: The Immaculate Conception, by Murillo]](https://openoldbooks.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/books/spain-vol-1-2/images/illus-b184c_sml.jpg)
The Immaculate Conception, by Murillo
and among them is a very large canvas representing the entire family of
Charles IV. But the two paintings into which he put his whole soul are
the French soldiers shooting the Spaniards on the second of May, and the
fight of the people of Madrid with the Mamelukes of Napoleon, in which
the figures are life-size. These are paintings which make one shudder.
One cannot imagine anything more terrible, nor is it possible to give
overbearing power a form more execrable, to desperation a more fearful
appearance, or to the fury of a battle an expression of greater
ferocity. In the first of these paintings there is a murky sky, the
light of a lantern, a pool of blood, a confused mass of corpses, a crowd
of men condemned to death, a row of French soldiers in the act of
firing: in the other, bleeding horses, cavaliers dragged from their
saddles, stabbed, trampled down, and mangled. What faces! what
attitudes! One seems to hear the cries and see the blood run; the actual
scene could not have been more horrible. Goya must have painted these
pictures with flashing eyes and foaming mouth, with all the fury of a
demoniac. It is the final point which painting can reach before it is
transferred into action; beyond this point the brush is flung aside and
the battle begins. Anything more terrible than these paintings must be
slaughter; after these colors comes blood.
Of Ribera—whom we know also by the name of Spagnoletto—there are
enough paintings to form a museum. They consist in great part of
life-size figures of saints; a martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, full of
figures; a colossal Prometheus chained to a rock. Other paintings of his
are found in other museums, at the Escurial, and in the churches, for he
was very productive and industrious, like almost all the Spanish
artists. After seeing a painting of his, one recognizes all the others
at a glance, nor is it necessary to look at them with the eye of a
critic to do this. There are old emaciated saints with shaved heads and
naked, so that one can count their veins; with hollow eyes, fleshless
cheeks, furrowed brows, and sunken chests, through which one can see
their ribs; arms and hands which are only skin and bones; bodies worn
out and exhausted, clothed in rags—yellow with the deathly pallor of
corpses, full of sores, and covered with flood; carcases which seem to
have been just dragged from the tomb, bearing on their faces the impress
of all the spasms of pain, torture, famine, and sleeplessness; figures
from the anatomist’s table, from which you might study all the secrets
of the human organism. Admirable? Yes, for boldness of design, for
strength of color, and for the thousand other merits which won for
Ribera the fame of a most powerful painter. But true and great art—ah,
it is not that! In those faces there is none of that celestial light,
that immortal ray of the soul, which reveals with sublime pathos, noble
aspirations, those “subtle flashes” and “limitless desires”—that light
which draws the eye from the sores and calls down the thought of heaven.
There is only the crude suffering which causes repulsion and fear; there
are only weariness of life and the presentiment of death; only that
fleeting mortal life without a suggestion of the immortality drawing
near. There is not one of those saints whose image one recalls with
affection: one looks and is chilled at heart, but the heart beats none
the quicker. Ribera never loved. Yet as I hurried through the halls of
the museum, in spite of that strong repugnance which many of these
paintings inspired in me, I was obliged to look at them and could not
withdraw my eyes, so great is the attractive force of truth, even if it
be despicable. And how true are the paintings of Ribera! I recognized
those faces: I had seen them in the hospitals, in the morgues, behind
the doors of churches—the faces of beggars, of the dying, of those
condemned to death, which haunt me at night even now when I hurry along
a deserted street, pass by a graveyard, or climb a mysterious staircase.
There are some of them which I could not look at—a naked hermit,
stretched on the ground, who seemed like a skeleton covered with skin;
an old saint whose shrunken skin gave the appearance of a flayed body;
the Prometheus with his entrails bursting from his breast. Ribera
delighted in blood, mangled limbs, and butchery; it was his delight to
represent suffering; he must have believed in an Inferno more horrible
than that of Dante and in a God more terrible than that of Philip II. In
the museum of Madrid he represents religious dread, old age, torture,
and death.
More cheerful, more various, and more splendid is the great Velasquez.
Almost all his masterpieces are there. They form a world: everything is
pictured in them—war, the court, the street, the tavern, Paradise. It
is a gallery of dwarfs, idiots, beggars, buffoons, revellers, comedians,
kings, warriors, martyrs, and gods, all alive and speaking, in bold and
novel attitudes, with serene brow and smiling lip, full of animation and
vigor; the great painting of Count-Duke de Olivares on horseback, the
celebrated paintings of the Beggars, of the Weavers, of the Revellers,
the Forge of Vulcan, and of the surrender of Breda—large canvases full
of figures which seem to be stepping out of the frame, which on once
seeing you remember distinctly by some trifling characteristic, a
gesture or a shadow on the face, as though they were real persons whom
you have just met; people with whom you seem to have talked, and of whom
you think long afterward as of acquaintances of a forgotten time; people
who might inspire cheerfulness and provoke a smile of admiration,
causing you to regret that it is possible only to enjoy them with the
eyes and not to mingle with them and share a little of their exuberant
life. This is not the effect of a preconceived opinion which the name of
the great artist has given, nor need one be a connoisseur of art to
experience it. The poor ignorant woman and the boy stop before those
pictures, clap their hands, and laugh. It is Nature painted with a
fidelity higher than any imagination. One forgets the painter, does not
think of the art, nor try to discover its meaning, but says, “This is
true! This is the very thing! It is the picture I had in my mind!” One
would say that Velasquez has not put anything of himself in it, but that
his hand has only drawn the lines and put the colors on the canvas from
a likeness which reproduced the very persons whom he was painting. There
are more than sixty of his paintings in the museum of Madrid, and if one
saw them only once, and hurriedly at that, not one of them would be
forgotten. It is with the paintings of Velasquez as with the romances of
Alessandro Manzoni—when one has read them for the tenth time they
become so interwoven and confused with one’s personal memories that one
seems to have lived them. So the persons in Velasquez’s paintings melt
into the crowd of friends and acquaintances; the neighbors and strangers
of our whole life present themselves and entertain us without our even
remembering that we have seen them on the canvas.
Now let us speak of Murillo in our gentlest tones. Velasquez is in art
an eagle; Murillo is an angel. One admires Velasquez and adores Murillo.
By his canvases we know him as if he had lived among us. He was
handsome, good, and virtuous. Envy knew not where to attack him; around
his crown of glory he bore a halo of love. He was born to paint the sky.
Fortune gave him a mild and serene genius, which bore him to God on the
wings of a tranquil inspiration, and yet his most admirable paintings
breathe an air of gentle sweetness which inspires sympathy and affection
even before admiration. A simple nobility and elegance of outline, an
expression full of sprightliness and grace, an inexpressible harmony of
colors,—these are the qualities that impress one at first sight; but
the more one looks at the paintings, the more one discovers, and
surprise is transformed little by little into a delicious sense of
pleasure. His saints have a benign aspect, cheering and consoling; his
angels, whom he groups with marvellous ability, make one’s lips tremble
with a desire to kiss them; his Virgins, clothed in white, with long
flowing draperies of azure, with their great black eyes, their clasped
hands, delicate, graceful, and ethereal, make one’s heart tremble with
their beauty and one’s eyes fill with tears. He combines the truth of
Velasquez, the vigor of Ribera, the harmonious transparency of Titian,
and the brilliant vivacity of Rubens. Spain has given
![[Image not available: Virgin of the Napkin, Murillo]](https://openoldbooks.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/books/spain-vol-1-2/images/illus-b190c_sml.jpg)
Virgin of the Napkin, Murillo
him the name of the “Painter of Conceptions” because he is unsurpassed
in the art of representing that divine idea. There are four grand
Conceptions in the museum of Madrid. I have stood for hours in front of
those four paintings, motionless and entranced. I was enraptured, above
all, by that incomplete one, with the arms folded over the Virgin’s
breast and a half moon across her waist. Many prefer the others; I
trembled on hearing this, for I was filled with an inexpressible love
for that face. More than once as I looked at it I felt the tears
coursing down my cheeks. As I stood before that painting my heart was
softened and my mind was lifted to a plane of thought higher than any I
had ever before reached. It was not the enthusiasm of faith; it was a
longing, a boundless aspiration toward faith, a hope which gave me
visions of a life nobler, richer, and more beautiful than that which I
had yet known—a new feeling of prayer, a desire to love, to do good, to
suffer for others, to make atonement, to elevate my mind and heart. I
have never been so full of faith as in those moments. I have never felt
so good and affectionate, and I believe that my soul has never shone
more clearly in my face. The Lady of Sorrows, Saint Anna Teaching the
Virgin to Read, Christ Crucified, The Annunciation, The Adoration
of the Shepherds, The Holy Family, The Virgin of the Rosary, and
The Child Jesus are all admirable and beautiful paintings of a soft
and serene light which appeal to the soul. One should see on a Sunday
the children, the girls, and the poor women before those pictures—see
how their faces light up and hear the sweet words upon their lips.
Murillo is a saint to them, and they speak his name with a smile, as if
to say, “He is ours!” and in so saying they look as though they were
performing an act of reverence. The artists do not all regard him in the
same manner, but they love him above all others, and they are not able
to divorce their admiration from their love.
Murillo is not merely a great painter; he is a great soul. He has won
more than glory: he has won the love of Spain. He is more than a
sovereign master of the beautiful; he is a benefactor, an inspiration to
noble deeds, for a lovely image, when once seen on his canvas, is
carried in the heart throughout life with a feeling of gratitude and
religious devotion. He is one of those men whom some secret prompting
tells us we must see again, and that the meeting will be a reward: such
men cannot have disappeared for ever; in some place they still live
where their life is as a lamp of constant flame, which must one day
appear to the eyes of mortals in all its splendor. “The empty dreams of
fancy,” one may say, but, ah, what pleasant dreams!
After the works of these four great masters there are the paintings of
Joanes to admire—an artist imbued with the Italian feeling, whose
correct drawing and nobility of character have won for him the title,
although it must be spoken in an undertone, of the Spanish Raphael. He
resembles Fra Angelico in his life, not in his art, for his studio was
an oratory where he fasted and did penance. Before beginning his work he
used to take the communion.
Then there are the paintings of Alonzo Cano; the paintings of Pacheco,
the master of Murillo; the paintings of Pareja, Velasquez’s slave; of
Navarrete the mute; of Menendez, a great painter of flowers; of Herrera,
Coello, Carbajal, Collantes, and Rizi, and there are a few works of
Zurbarán, one of the greatest Spanish artists, worthy to stand beside
the three first. The corridors, the antechambers, and the halls are full
of the works of other artists, of less importance than those mentioned,
but nevertheless admirable for particular points.
But this is not the only art gallery in Madrid; there are hundreds of
pictures in the Academy of San Fernando. In the chambers of Fomento and
in other private galleries one would have to spend month after month to
see everything well, and to describe it would take an equal time, even
if one had sufficient ability to do so. One of the ablest French
writers, a great lover of art and a master of description, when it came
to the point was frightened and knew nothing better to do than to avoid
the dilemma by saying that it would take too long to describe it all;
and if he thought well to keep silent, it must appear that I have said
too much already. It is one of the saddest consequences of a pleasant
journey to discover that one has in one’s mind a crowd of lovely images
and in one’s heart a tumult of grand emotions, and to be able to express
only so small a part of them.
With what profound contempt could I destroy these pages when I think of
those paintings! O Murillo! O Velasquez! O my poor pen!
A few days after my arrival at Madrid, as I was coming from the street
Alcalá into the square of the Puerta del Sol, I saw King Amadeus for the
first time. I felt it to be as great a pleasure as if I had met my most
intimate friend. It is strange to find one’s self in a country where the
only person one knows is the king. One could wish to run after him
saying, “Your Majesty, it is I; I have arrived.”
Amadeus pursued his father’s course at Madrid. He rose at dawn and
walked in the gardens of Moro, which lie between the royal palace and
the Manzanares, or else he visited the museums, walking through the city
on foot with only one attendant. The maids, running home in breathless
haste with their well-filled baskets, told their sleepy mistresses how
they had met the king, how they had passed him so near that he could
have touched them; and the Republican matrons would say, “And so he
ought to!” And the Carlists would make a grimace and mutter, “What sort
of a king is that?” Or as I heard one say, “He seems determined to get
shot at any cost.” On returning to the palace he received the
captain-general and the governor of Madrid, who, in accordance with the
ancient custom, are obliged to present themselves every day to the king
to ask if he has any orders to give to the army or the police. Next came
the ministers. Besides seeing them altogether in council once a week,
Amadeus received one of them every day. On the departure of the minister
the audience began.
Amadeus gave an audience every day of at least one hour’s duration, and
many times prolonged it to two hours. The demands were innumerable, and
the ends sought may be easily imagined—subsidies, pensions, positions,
favors, and decorations. The king heard them all. The queen also
received—not every day, however, on account of her variable health. To
her lot fell all the deeds of charity. She received all sorts of people
in the presence of the major-domo and a lady of honor at the hour of the
king’s audience—ladies, laboring-men, peasant-women, hearing with pity
their long recitals of poverty and suffering; moreover, she distributed
in works of charity a hundred thousand francs a month, without counting
her liberal donations to hospitals, asylums, and other benevolent
institutions, some of which she herself founded.
On the bank of the Manzanares, in sight of the royal palace, in an open
smiling place, one sees a brightly-colored cottage surrounded by a
garden, when as one passes one hears the laughter, the crowing, and the
crying of babies. The queen had this house built to shelter the little
children of washerwomen, who, while their mothers were at work, used to
remain in the streets exposed to a thousand dangers. There are teachers,
nurses, and servants who provide for all the needs of the babies: it is
at the same time a refuge and a school. The funds for the construction
and maintenance of the house were appropriated from the twenty-five
thousand francs a month which the state had granted to the duke of
Puglia. The queen also instituted a foundling hospital, a home or sort
of college for the children of the tobacco-workers, and kitchens where
soup, meat, and bread are distributed to all the poor of the city. She
herself went unexpectedly sometimes to assist at the distribution, to
assure herself that no abuse was made of it, and, discovering that some
trickery was practised, she provided against its repetition. Besides
these acts, the Sisters of Charity received every month thirty thousand
francs with which to succor those families that by reason of their
social position were not able to come to the distribution of soup. These
private deeds of benevolence which the queen performed were very
difficult to discover, because she was accustomed to do them without
speaking to any one. Little is known of her habits, because she did
everything unostentatiously and with a reserve which would be
considered excessive even for a private lady.
None of the court ladies knew that she went to hear the sermon at San
Luis de Francis; a lady saw her there for the first time, by chance,
among the other worshippers. In her dress there was nothing distinctive
of royalty, not even on the days of the court dinners. Queen Isabella
wore a great red mantle with the arms of Castile, a diadem, ornaments,
and insignia; not so Donna Victoria. She usually dressed in the colors
of the Spanish flag, with a simplicity which proclaimed her royalty much
better than splendor and magnificence would have done. It was not
Spanish gold which had to do with this simplicity: all the expenses
which were incurred for herself, her children, and her servants were
paid from her privy purse.
When the Bourbons were on the throne the whole of the royal palace was
occupied. The king resided in the left wing toward the plaza of the
armory; Montpensier lived in the part opposite to that of the queen; the
princes had each an apartment looking toward the garden of Moro. When
King Amadeus resided there a great part of the immense edifice remained
empty: he occupied only three small rooms—a study, a bed-chamber, and a
dressing-room. His chamber opened into a long corridor which led to the
two little rooms of the princes, opposite to which was the queen’s
apartments, for she would never be separated from her children.
Then there was a reception-room. All that part of the palace which
served for the entire royal family was formerly occupied by Queen
Isabella alone. When she learned that Amadeus and Victoria were content
with such small quarters, she is said to have exclaimed with
astonishment, “Poor young things! they won’t have room to turn around.”
The king and queen used to dine with a major-domo and one of the court
ladies. After dinner the king smoked a Virginia cigar (if the detractors
of this prince of cigars care to know it) and entered his cabinet to
attend to the affairs of state. He was accustomed to take a great many
notes and frequently consulted with the queen, especially when he was
trying to reconcile the ministers or to conciliate the heads of
departments. He read a great many magazines of every bias; anonymous
letters which threatened him with death and those which gave him advice;
satirical poems, schemes of social revolution,—everything, indeed, that
was sent to him. About three o’clock he left the palace on horseback;
the guards blew their trumpets and a squire in red livery followed him
at a distance of fifty paces. To see him one would have said that he did
not know he was the king: he looked at the children as they passed him,
at the signs of the shops, the soldiers, the coaches, and the fountains
with an expression of almost childish curiosity. He rode the whole
length of the street Alcalá slowly, like an ordinary citizen thinking of
his own affairs, and would turn into the Prado to enjoy his part of the
air and the sunshine.
The ministers clamored against it; the Bourbons, accustomed to the
imposing equipage of Isabella, said that he was trailing the majesty of
the throne of San Fernando through the streets; even the squire who
followed him looked around with a shamefaced air, as if to say, “See
what folly!” But whatever they might say, the king gave no sign of fear.
And the Spaniards, it must be said, did him justice, and, whatever may
have been their opinion of his administration and government, they never
failed to add, “So far as courage goes, there is nothing to say.”
Every Sunday there was a court dinner. Invitations were extended to
deputies, professors, academicians, and illustrious men of letters and
scientists. The queen talked with them all on every subject with a
confidence and grace which, for all they had previously heard of her
genius and culture, quite exceeded their expectations. The people
naturally exaggerated in speaking of her attainments, and talked of
Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit, astronomy, and mathematics. But true it is that
she talked intelligently on subjects far removed from the ordinary
course of feminine studies, and not in the evasive and superficial
manner of those who know only the names and titles. She had made a
careful study of the Spanish language, and finally spoke it as though it
were her own; the history, literature, and customs of her adopted
country were alike familiar to her, and she lacked only the desire to
remain in Spain to have made her a thorough Spaniard. The Liberals
murmured, the Bourbons said, “She is not our queen,” but they all
regarded her with profound respect. The bitterest journals went no
farther than to call her the wife of Amadeus instead of the queen. The
most violent of the Republican deputies in alluding to her in a speech
at the Cortes could do no less than pronounce her illustrious and
virtuous. She was the only person of the royal household against whom no
one would permit a slur either by tongue or pen. She was like a white
figure left in the centre of a group of spiteful caricatures.
As for the king, it seemed as though the Spanish press enjoyed an
unrestrained liberty, and under the safeguard of the titles the
Savoyard, the foreigner, and the young courtier the journals which
were opposed to his rule could say in substance whatever they chose; and
didn’t they say charming things? One took it to heart that the king was
homely in face and figure, another was displeased because he walked so
stiffly, a third tried to ridicule his manner of returning a salute, and
other trifling matters which are almost incredible. Nevertheless, the
people of Madrid had for him, if not the enthusiasm of the Azenzia
Stefani, at least a very real sympathy.
The simplicity of his habits and his kindheartedness were proverbial
even among the children. It was known that he bore no malice toward any,
not even toward those who had treated him badly; that he had never given
an affront to any one; that no bitter word against his enemies had ever
escaped him. If one spoke of the personal dangers which he incurred,
every good citizen answered indignantly that the Spanish people respect
those who trust them; his bitterest enemies spoke of him with anger, but
not with odium; the very men who would not raise their hats on meeting
him in the street felt their blood boil when others followed their
example, and could not conceal a feeling of sadness at the occurrence.
There are images of fallen kings over which one casts a dark covering;
others are concealed by a white veil which makes them appear more
beautiful and venerable: over this one Spain has cast the white veil.
And who knows but that one day the sight of this image will call from
the breast of every honest Spaniard a secret sigh, like the memory of a
beloved one who has been offended, or like a gentle and benign voice
which says in sad tones of reproach, “Nevertheless, thou hast wronged
me”?
One Sunday the king held a review of the Volunteers of Liberty, a sort
of national guard like that of Italy, with this difference—that the
Italians do good service voluntarily, while the Spaniards will do
nothing even by force.
The Voluntarios were drawn up along the avenue of the Prado, where an
immense crowd had collected. When I arrived there were already three or
four battalions of them. The first was the battalion of veterans, all
men above fifty, and not a few very old, dressed in black and wearing
the cap à la Ros, with gold and silver lace and crosses upon crosses,
as spruce and tidy as the students of a military academy, and from the
proud and dignified rolling of their eyes they might have been
confounded with the grenadiers of the Old Guard. After them came another
battalion in a different uniform—gray breeches, a coat open and turned
back over the breast, with large lapels of scarlet cloth; instead of the
caps à la Ros, hats with blue plumes—and carrying guns with fixed
bayonets. Another battalion and another uniform—the Ros caps again
instead of the hats, and green cloth instead of the red, breeches of
another color, and daggers instead of bayonets. A fourth battalion and
arms all different. Other battalions come up, in various array. Some
wear Prussian helmets, others helmets without points; some carry
bayonets, some straight daggers, some curved and others spiral daggers;
here there are soldiers with corded coats, there those without cords,
and again those with cords; belts, epaulets, cravats, plumes; everything
changes every moment.
All the divisions are gay and pompous, with a hundred colors and a
hundred banners which wave, flash, and float in the air. Every battalion
has a different banner covered with embroidery, ribbons, and fringe.
Among the others one sees soldiers dressed like peasants with any sort
of a stripe sewed loosely down a pair of ragged trousers; some without
cravats, some with black cravats, open jackets, and embroidered tunics;
boys from twelve to fifteen, armed at all points, walking in the ranks;
vivandières, with short skirts and red breeches, carrying baskets full
of cigars and oranges. At the head of the battalions there is a
continual hurrying of mounted officials. Every major wears on his head
or on his breast or on his saddle some ornament of his own device; at
every moment a courier of some unknown corps passes; one sees lace of
liver, gold, and wool on the arms, on the shoulders, and around the
neck; medallions and crosses so thick that they conceal half the breast,
fastened one above the other, both above and below the belt; gloves of
all the colors of the rainbow; sabres, swords little and big, pistols
and revolvers—a mixture, in short, of all the uniforms and arms of
every army; a variety that would appall ten ministerial commissioners
for the modification of dress; a confusion that turns one’s head. I do
not remember whether there were twelve or fourteen battalions; as each
one of them selected its own uniform, there was necessarily the greatest
possible diversity among them. They were commanded by the mayor, who
also wore a fantastic uniform. There were about eight thousand men.
At the hour assigned a sudden scurrying of staff-officers and a loud
blast of trumpets announced the arrival of the king. Amadeus had, in
fact, arrived on horseback by the street Alcalá in the uniform of
commander-in-chief, with cavalry boots, white breeches, and swallow-tail
coat, and behind him a closely-formed group of generals, aides-de-camp,
servants in scarlet livery, lancers, cuirassiers, and guards. After he
had reviewed the entire front of the army from the Prado as far as the
church of Atocha, surrounded by a dense, silent crowd, he returned
toward the street Alcalá. Here there was a vast multitude which surged
and murmured like the sea. The king and his staff took their stand in
front of the church of San José, with their backs toward the façade, and
the cavalry with great trouble succeeded in opening a narrow space
through which the battalions might march.
They marched in platoons. As they passed, at a signal from the
commander, they cried, “Viva el Rey! Viva Don Amadeo primero!” It was
an unfortunate idea for the first officer to give the cry. The
spontaneous cheer of the first became a duty to all the others, and this
resulted in the public taking the greater and the less vigor and harmony
of the voices as a sign of political demonstration. Some of the platoons
gave such a weak, short cheer that it seemed like the cry of a group of
sick men calling for aid; then the crowd burst out laughing. Other
platoons gave a deafening shout, and that was interpreted as a
demonstration hostile to the government. There were several reports
passing among the people crowded about me. One said, “There comes such a
battalion: they are republicans; you will see they will not cheer.” The
battalion passed without cheering. The people coughed. Another said, “It
is an outrage, a fault of education; I don’t like Amadeus much myself,
but I keep quiet and respect him.” There was some disturbance. A young
fellow shouted Viva in a falsetto voice, and a caballero told him he
was impertinent; he resented this, and they both raised their hands,
whereupon a third separated them.
Between the different battalions marched citizens on horseback; some did
not raise their hats or even look toward the king, and then one might
hear different expressions through the crowd, as “Well done!” and “What
bad manners!” Others, whose will was good enough to salute him, were
afraid to do so, and passed with bowed head and blushing face. Others,
on the contrary, disgusted by the spectacle, made a courageous
demonstration for Amadeus in the face of them all, marching past, hat in
hand, and looking first respectfully toward the king and then fiercely
toward the crowd for the distance of ten paces. The king sat until the
end of the procession motionless, with an unchanged expression of serene
haughtiness. So ended the review.
This national militia, although it is not so disorganized and exhausted
as ours, is nothing more than the ghost of an army: the ridiculous has
gnawed at its very roots; but as an amusement on a holiday, although the
number of volunteers is much reduced (they numbered thirty thousand at
one time), it is always a spectacle which far surpasses all the
flag-poles and red rags of Signor Ottino.
The thirty-first of March inaugurates the spectacle of the bull-fights.
Let us discuss them at leisure, for they form a worthy subject.
He who has read Baretti’s description may consider that he has read
nothing. Baretti saw only the bull-fights of Lisbon, which are mere
child’s play beside those of Madrid. Madrid is the home of the art: here
are the great artists, here the stupendous spectacles, here the skilled
spectators, here the judges who distribute the honors. The circus of
Madrid is the Theatre della Scala of the art of bull-fighting.
The inauguration of the bull-fights at Madrid is even more important
than a change of the ministry. A month beforehand the news spreads
throughout all Spain: from Cadiz to Barcelona, from Bilbao to Almeria,
in the palaces of the grandees and the cabins of the poor, they talk
only of the artists and the breed of bulls; they arrange fights for
pleasure between the provinces and the capital; he who is short of money
begins to save so as to get a good place in the circus on that great
day; fathers and mothers promise their children to take them if they
will study well; lovers make similar promises to their sweethearts; the
papers assure you that it will be a good season; the famous toreros,
who already begin to appear in Madrid, are pointed out with the finger;
rumors are afloat that the bulls have arrived, and some have seen them
or have arranged to do so.
There are bulls from the pastures of the duke of Veragua, the marquis de
Merced, and of Her Excellency the dowager of Villaseca, prodigious and
terrible. The office is opened to receive subscriptions; the dilettanti
crowd around, together with the servants of the noble families, the
brokers, and friends commissioned by the absent. The first day the
manager has received fifty thousand francs, on the second thirty
thousand, and a hundred thousand in a week. Frascuelo, the famous
matador, has arrived; Cuco has arrived; Calderón has arrived, and all
the others three days before the time. Thousands of people can talk of
nothing else; ladies dream of the circus; ministers have no thought for
other affairs; old dilettanti can hardly contain themselves; soon
laboring-men stop buying their cigarettes to have a few pennies on the
day of the spectacle. Finally, on Saturday morning, before dawn, they
commence to sell tickets in a room on the street Alcalá. A crowd
collects before the doors are opened, yelling, pushing, and knocking
each other about; twenty policemen with revolvers in their belts are
scarcely able to keep decent order; there is a continuous stream of
people until night.
The long-expected day has arrived. The spectacle commences at three
o’clock; at noon the people start from all directions toward the circus,
which stands at the edge of the suburb of Salamanca, beyond the Prado,
outside of the gate of Alcalá; all the streets which lead there are
crowded with a procession of people. The circus looks like a great
anthill; troops of soldiers and Volunteers of Liberty arrive, headed by
bands of music; a crowd of water-carriers and orange-sellers fill the
air with their cries; ticket-sellers run here and there, hailed by a
thousand voices. Woe for him who has not yet bought his ticket! He will
pay double, treble, quadruple! But what cares he if a ticket costs even
fifty or eighty francs? They are looking for the king; they say the
queen is coming too. The chariots of the great guns begin to arrive;
the duke Ferdinando Nunes, the duke d’Abrantes, the marquis de la Vega
de Armijo, a crowd of the grandees of Spain, the goddesses of the
aristocracy, the ministers, generals, and ambassadors—all that is
beautiful, splendid, and powerful in the great city. One may enter the
circus by many doors, but before entering one is deafened by the noise.
I entered. The circus is immense. The outside is in no way remarkable;
it is a low circular yellow building without windows, but on entering
one feels the liveliest surprise. It is a circus for a people, where ten
thousand spectators can be seated and in which a regiment of cavalry
might drill. The arena is circular, and so vast that it could hold ten
of our equestrian circuses. It is encircled by a wooden barrier about
even with a man’s shoulders, provided on the inside with a narrow ledge
a little way from the ground, on which the toreros place their feet to
jump over when the bull chases them. Beyond this barrier there is
another higher one, for the bull often leaps over the first; between the
two a narrow course, a little more than a metre in width, runs all the
way round the arena; here the toreros stroll before the combat, and here
stand the attendants of the circus—the carpenters ready to repair the
gaps which the bull has made, the guards, the orange-venders, the
dilettanti who enjoy the friendship of the manager, and the great guns
who are allowed to transgress the rules. Beyond the second barrier
rises a tier of stone seats, and beyond this are the boxes; below the
boxes runs a gallery containing three rows of seats. The boxes are each
large enough to hold three or four families; the king’s box is a great
drawing-room; next to it is that of the city officials, in which sits
the mayor or whoever presides at the spectacle. Then there is the box
for the ministers, for the governors, and for the ambassadors; every
noble family has one; the young bon tons, as Giusti would say, have a
box to themselves; then there are boxes to let which cost a fortune.
Every seat in the tiers is numbered, every person has a ticket; so the
entrance is made without the least disorder. The circus is divided into
two parts—one in the shade, the other in the sunshine; in the first one
pays more; in the second sit the common people. The arena has four doors
at equal distances from each other—the door through which the toreros
enter, the door for the bulls, another for the horses, and a fourth,
under the king’s box, for the heralds of the spectacle. Over the door
through which the bulls enter rises a sort of sloping platform which is
called the toril, and well for him who can find a place there! Upon
this platform, in a little box, stand the men who at a sign from the
mayor’s box sound the trumpet and drum to announce the entrance of the
bull. Facing the toril on the opposite side of the arena along the
stone balcony is the band of music. The whole balcony is divided into
compartments, each of which has its own door.
Before the show begins the people are allowed to enter the arena and to
walk through all the passages of the building. They go to see the horses
enclosed in a courtyard, and most of them destined to be killed, more’s
the pity! They go to see the dark chambers where are confined the bulls,
which are driven from one enclosure to another until they reach a
corridor and dash into the arena; they go to see the infirmary where the
wounded toreros are borne: once there was a chapel to visit in which
mass was celebrated during the combat, and there the toreros went to
pray before confronting the angry brutes; then they go to the principal
entrance, where are exhibited the banderillas that are to be inserted
in the bulls’ necks, and where one sees a group of old toreros—one
lame, another without an arm, a third on crutches—and the young toreros
who have not yet been admitted to the honors of the circus of Madrid.
One buys a copy of the Bulletin of the Bulls, which promises miracles
for the doings of the day. Then one gets from the guard the programme of
the spectacle and a printed leaflet divided into columns for noting the
strokes of the spear, the thrusts, the falls, and the wounds. One climbs
along endless corridors and interminable stairways in the midst of a
crowd which comes and goes, ascends and descends, crying and shouting,
so that the whole building trembles, and finally one returns to one’s
seat.
The circus is crowded full, and presents a spectacle of which it is
impossible to form an idea unless one has seen it: it is a sea of heads,
hats, fans, and hands waving in the air; on the side where sit the
better classes in the shade all is dark; on the other side, in the sun,
where the common people sit, a thousand brilliant colors of vesture,
parasols, and paper fans—an immense masquerade.
There is not room enough for another child; the crowd is as compact as a
phalanx; no one can go out, and it is difficult even to move one’s arms.
It is not a buzzing like the noise of other theatres; it is different:
it is an agitation, a life altogether peculiar to the circus; everybody
is shouting, gesticulating, and saluting each other with frantic joy;
the women and children scream; the gravest men frolic like boys; the
young men, in groups of twenty and thirty, shout in chorus and beat with
their canes against the stone balustrade as a sign to the mayor that the
hour has arrived. In the boxes there is an overflow of spirits, like
that in the galleries of the regular theatres; the discordant cries of
the crowd are augmented by the howls of a hundred hawkers, who are
throwing oranges in every direction; the band plays, the bulls bellow,
the crowd outside roars; it is a spectacle which makes one dizzy, and
before the struggle commences one is exhausted, intoxicated, and
stupefied.
Suddenly there is a cry, “The king!” The king has arrived; he is come in
a chariot drawn by white horses, with mounted grooms in picturesque
Andalusian costumes; the glass doors of the royal box swing back, and
the king enters with a stately crowd of ministers, generals, and
major-domos. The queen is not there: one foresaw that; every one knows
that she has a horror of this spectacle. Oh! but the king would not miss
it; he has always come. They say he is mad over it. The hour has come,
the spectacle begins. I shall remember to my dying day the chill which
passed over me at that moment.
A blare of trumpets; four guards of the circus on horseback, with cap
and plume à la Henri IV., with black mantles, tight-fitting jackets,
jack-boots, and swords, enter by the gate under the king’s box and
slowly make the circuit of the arena. The people separate; every one
goes to his seat; the arena is deserted. The four cavaliers take their
places, two by two, in front of the door opposite the royal box, which
is still closed.
Ten thousand spectators fix their eyes on that spot; there is a
universal silence. For through it will come the cuadrilla, with all
the toreros in gala dress to present themselves to the king and the
people. The band plays, the door springs open, there is a burst of
applause; the toreros advance. First come the three espadas,
Frascuelo, Lagartijo, and Cayetano, the three famous ones, dressed in
the costume of Figaro in the Barber of Seville, in satin, silk, and
velvet, orange, scarlet, and blue, covered with embroidery, fringe,
lace, filigree, tinsel, spangles of gold and silver, which almost
conceal their dress; enveloped in full capes of yellow and red, with
white stockings, silken girdles, a bunch of tassels on the neck, and a
fur cap. Next come the banderilleros and the capeadores, a troop
covered like the others with gold and silver; then the picadores, on
horseback, two by two, each with a great battle-lance, a low-crowned
gray hat, an embroidered jacket, breeches of yellow buffalo skin, padded
and lined inside with strips of iron; then the chulos, or servants,
dressed in their holiday best; and altogether they walk majestically
across the arena toward the box of the king. One cannot imagine anything
more picturesque than this spectacle: there are all the colors of a
garden, all the splendors of a royal court, all the gayety of a rout of
maskers, all the grandeur of a band of warriors; on closing one’s eyes
one sees only a gleaming of gold and silver. They are very handsome
men—the picadores tall, stout of limb like athletes; the others
slight and nimble, with chiselled forms, swarthy faces, and great fierce
eyes—figures like the ancient gladiators, clothed with the magnificence
of Asiatic princes.
The entire cuadrilla stops in front of the royal
![[Image not available: Implanting the Bandillera]](https://openoldbooks.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/books/spain-vol-1-2/images/illus-b214c-1_sml.jpg)
Implanting the Bandillera
![[Image not available: The Charge]](https://openoldbooks.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/books/spain-vol-1-2/images/illus-b214c-2_sml.jpg)
The Charge
box and salutes; the mayor makes a sign that they may begin; the key of
the toril, where the bulls are confined, is tossed from the box into
the arena; a guard of the circus picks it up and gives it to the
custodian, who places himself before the door ready to open it. The band
of toreros separates, the espadas leap over the barrier, the
capeadores scatter through the arena, waving their red and yellow
capas; the picadores retire to await their turn; the rest spur their
horses and take their positions to the left of the toril at a distance
of twenty paces apart, with their backs to the barrier and their lances
in rest.
It is a moment of keen excitement, of unexpressible anxiety: all eyes
are fixed on the door by which the bull will enter; all hearts are
beating high; a profound silence broods over the whole circus; one hears
only the bellowing of the bull as he advances from cell to cell in the
darkness of his vast prison; one can almost hear him crying, “Blood!
blood!” The horses tremble, the picadores grow pale: another instant a
blare of trumpets, the door is thrown wide open, and the terrible bull
dashes into the arena saluted by a terrific shout, which bursts at that
moment from ten thousand throats. The butchery has begun.
Ah! it is a good thing to have strong nerves: at that moment one turns
as white as a corpse.
I can only remember confusedly what followed in the first instance: I
do not know where I could have been. The bull rushed against the first
picador, retreated, continued his course, and rushed upon the second;
if there was a struggle, I do not remember it; then a moment later he
rushed against the third, ran to the centre of the arena, stood and
looked about him: I too looked about and covered my face with my hands.
All that part of the arena where the bull had passed was streaked with
blood; the first horse lay dead on the ground with his belly ripped open
and his entrails scattered about; the second, with his breast torn by a
deep gash from which blood was streaming, staggered about here and
there; the third was thrown to the ground and tried in vain to rise; the
chulos hurried in, raised the picadores from the ground, took the
saddle and bridle from the dead horse, and tried to help the wounded one
to his feet: an infernal yell resounded from every part of the circus;
thus the spectacle usually begins. The first to receive the onslaught of
the bull are the picadores; they sit firmly awaiting him and plant the
lance between the head and shoulders of the bull as he is in the act of
fastening his horns in the horse. The lance, be it noted, has only a
small point, which cannot make a deep wound, and the picadores are
obliged by sheer force of arm to ward off the bull and save their
steeds. To do this one must have a sure eye, an arm of bronze, and a
dauntless heart; they do not always succeed; indeed, they usually fail,
and the bull plants his horns in the horse’s belly and the picador is
thrown to the ground. Then the capeadores run forward, and while the
bull is shaking his horns free from the entrails of his victim they wave
their capas before his eyes, turn his attention, make him follow them
and leave the fallen horseman in safety; whereupon the chulos come to
his aid, and help him again into the saddle if the horse can still
stand, or carry him off to the infirmary if he has broken his head.
The bull stood panting in the middle of the arena with bloody horns,
looking around as if to say, “Have you had enough?” A band of
capeadores ran toward him, surrounded him, and commenced to tease and
badger him, making him rush here and there, waving their capas before
his eyes, passing them over his head, leading him on, and escaping with
the nimblest turns, to return to tease him again, and again flee from
him. And the bull turns on them one after another, and chases them as
far as the barrier, where he butts his horns against the boards, stamps,
cuts capers, bellows, buries his horns in the bodies of the dead horses
as he passes, tries to jump into the course, and rushes around the arena
in every direction. Meanwhile the other picadores come in to take the
places of the two whose horses had been killed, and take their positions
at some distance from each other, over beside the toril with lances
in rest, ready for the attack of the bull. The capeadores dextrously
draw him in that direction, and, seeing the first horse, he made a
plunge toward him with lowered head. But this time his blow was parried:
the lance of the picador was fixed in his shoulder and checked him.
The bull was stubborn; he strained and lunged forward with all his
weight; but in vain: the picador held firm, the bull retreated, the
horse was saved, and a thunderous burst of applause greeted the man. The
other picador was less fortunate: the bull attacked; he did not
succeed in planting his lance firmly; the terrible horns penetrated the
horse’s belly as quickly as a sword might have done, were violently
twisted in the wound, and withdrawn; the intestines of the poor animal
fell through and remained dangling, like a great bag, almost down to the
ground; the picador remained in the saddle. There a horrible sight was
witnessed. Instead of dismounting, the picador, perceiving that the
wound was not mortal, put the spurs to the horse and rode to another
place to await a second attack: the horse crossed the arena with his
entrails hanging from his belly, striking against his legs, and impeding
his steps. The bull followed for a moment and stopped. At that point
there was blast on the trumpets: it was the signal for the picadores
to withdraw. A gate was opened, and they galloped out one after another;
the two dead horses were left, and here and there were pools and
streaks of blood which two chulos covered with earth.
After the picadores come the banderilleros. And to the uninitiated
this part of the performance is the most entertaining, for the reason
that it is the least cruel. The banderillas are little arrows about
two spans in length, ornamented with colored paper and provided with a
metal tip so formed that when it once penetrates the skin it cannot be
withdrawn, and the bull with his running and shaking only drives it
farther in. The banderillero takes two of these arrows, one in each
hand, and assumes a position about fifteen paces distant from the bull,
and then, by waving his hands and shouting, provokes an attack. The bull
rushes toward him: the banderillero in his turn runs toward the bull,
and just as the bull’s head is lowered to plunge his horns into the
man’s body the banderillero plants the arrows in his neck, one on this
side, the other on that, and saves himself by a quick turn. If he stops,
if his foot slips, if he hesitates an instant, he will be spitted like a
frog. The bull bellows, snorts, tosses himself, and turns with dreadful
fury to follow the capeadores. In a minute they have all jumped into
the course; the arena is cleared, and the brute, with foaming mouth,
bloodshot eyes, and neck streaked with blood, stamps the ground, shakes
himself, runs at the barrier, demands vengeance, thirsts for blood and
slaughter: no one appears to confront him; the spectators fill the air
with the cry, “Forward! courage!” “The next banderillero!” The next
banderillero advances and plants his arrows, then a third, and then
the first again. On that day there were eight arrows inserted. The poor
beast, when he felt the last two, gave a long bellow, distressing and
horrible, and, dashing after one of his enemies, followed him to the
barrier, took the leap, and fell with him into the course. The ten
thousand spectators were all on their feet in an instant, crying, “He
has killed him!” But the banderillero had escaped. The bull ran
backward and forwarded between the two barriers under a rain of blows
and thrusts, until he was driven to an open gate and returned to the
arena as the gate closed after him. Then all the banderilleros and all
the capeadores rushed toward him again: one passed behind and gave his
tail a jerk, and disappeared like a flash of lightning; another as he
flew past wound a capa around his horns; a third actually had the
audacity to snatch off with one hand a little silk bow which was tied to
his tail; a fourth, the most rash of them all, planted a pole in the
ground as the bull was running, took a flying leap, and passed entirely
over him and landed on the other side, throwing the stick between the
legs of the astonished animal; and they did all this with the quickness
of jugglers and the grace of dancers, as though they were playing with a
lamb. Meanwhile, the immense crowd made the circus resound with their
laughter and applause and cries of delight, admiration, and terror.
Another blast of the trumpet; the banderilleros are done. Now for the
espada. It is a solemn moment, the crisis of the drama. The crowd is
still, the ladies lean forward in their boxes, the king rises to his
feet. The famous Frascuelo, holding in one hand the sword and in the
other the muleta, a piece of red stuff fastened to a stick, enters the
arena, presents himself before the royal box, raises his cap, and in a
poetic phrase consecrates to the king the bull that he is about to kill;
then, tossing his cap in the air, as if to say, “Victory or death!”
followed by a splendid train of capeadores, he advances resolutely
toward the bull. Here follows a veritable hand-to-hand struggle worthy
of Homer’s song. On one side is the brute with his terrible horns, with
his enormous strength, his thirst for blood, maddened by pain, blinded
by rage, fierce, bloody, terrible; on the other, a young man of twenty,
dressed like a dancer, on foot, alone and defenceless but for the short,
slender sword in his hand. But the gaze of twenty thousand eyes is bent
upon him. The king has a gift at hand; his sweetheart is above there in
a box, with her eyes fixed upon him; a thousand ladies are trembling for
his life. The bull pauses and looks at him; he looks at the bull and
waves the red cloth before him. The bull dashes under it; the espada
springs aside; that terrible horn grazes his hip, strikes the red cloth,
and cleaves the empty air. A shout of applause bursts from the entire
balcony, from all the boxes and galleries. The ladies raise their
opera-glasses and cry, “He has not paled!”
All is silence again; there is not a sound; not a whisper. The bold
torero flutters the muleta before the eyes of the infuriated animal,
passes it overhead between his horns and around his neck, makes him
recede, advance, turn, jump; invites an attack ten times, and ten times
by the slightest motion escapes death; lets his muleta fall, and picks
it up under the eyes of the bull; laughs in his face, taunts him,
insults him, and makes sport of him: all at once he stops, puts himself
on guard, raises his sword, and takes aim; the bull looks at him;
another instant and they will rush toward each other. One of them must
die; ten thousand glances run with lightning rapidity from the point of
the sword to the tips of the horns; ten thousand hearts beat fast with
anxiety and terror; the faces are all tense with excitement; one does
not hear a breath; the vast crowd seems petrified. Another instant—the
time has come! The bull dashes forward; the man brandishes his sword; a
single loud cry, and then a tempestuous burst of applause breaks forth
on every side; the sword has been buried to its hilt in the bull’s neck;
the bull reels and with a stream of blood flowing from his mouth falls
as though he had been struck by lightning.
The man has conquered! Then follows an indescribable tumult; the
multitude seems to grow mad; all leap to their feet, wave their arms,
and cry at the top of their voices; the ladies wave their handkerchiefs,
clap their hands, and shake their fans; the band strikes up; the
victorious espada approaches the barrier and makes the circuit of the
arena. As he passes, from the galleries, the boxes, and the balconies
the spectators, carried away by their enthusiasm, shower upon him
packages of cigars, purses, canes, hats, anything which they can lay
their hands on; in a few moments the fortunate torero has his arms full
of trophies, calls the capeadores to his assistance, throws back the
hats to his admirers, thanks them, and responds as well as he can to the
salutes, the praises, and the glorious titles with which he is hailed
upon every side, and finally comes to the royal box.
Then all eyes are riveted on the king. The king puts his hand in his
pocket, takes out a cigar-case full of bank-notes, and tosses it down;
the torero catches it in the air, and the multitude bursts into
applause. Meanwhile the band is playing a dirge for the bull; a gate
opens, four enormous mules gallop in, ornamented with plumes, tassels,
and ribbons of yellow and red, driven by a band of chulos, who shout
and crack their whips; the dead horses are drawn out one after another,
and finally the bull is removed, whereupon he is at once carried to a
little square near the circus, where a crowd of gamins is waiting to dip
their fingers in his blood, after which he is flayed, butchered, and
sold.
The arena is again free; the trumpet sounds, the drum beats: another
bull dashes from his prison, attacks the picadores, rips up the
bellies of horses, offers his neck to the banderilleros, and is killed
by an espada; and so, without any intermission, six bulls are
presented in the arena one after the other.
How many shocks, how many tremors, how many chills at the heart and
rushes of blood to the head does one feel during that spectacle! how
many sudden pallors! But you, stranger, you alone are pale; the boy
beside you is laughing, the girl in front of you is wild with delight,
the lady whom you see in the next box says she has never enjoyed herself
so much. What shouting! what exclamations! That is the place to learn
the language! As the bull appears he is judged by a thousand voices:
“What a fine head! what eyes! he will draw blood! he is worth a
fortune!” They break out into words of love. He has killed a horse.
“Bueno! see how much has fallen from the belly!” A picador misses
his stroke and wounds the bull badly or is afraid to confront him; then
there is a deluge of insulting names: “Poltroon! imposter! assassin! go
hide yourself! go and be hanged!” They all rise, point with their
fingers, shake their fists, throw orange-peel and cigar-stumps in his
face, and threaten him with their canes. When the espada kills the
bull with one stroke, then follow the delirious words of lovers and
extravagant gestures: “Come here, angel! God bless thee, Frascuelo!”
They throw him kisses, call to him, and stretch out their hands as if to
embrace him. What a profusion of epithets, witticisms, and proverbs!
What fire! what life!
But I have spoken only of the doings of one bull; in the entire
corrida a thousand accidents occur. In that same day a bull thrust his
head under a horse’s belly, raised the horse and horseman, and, carrying
them in triumph across the arena, threw them both to the ground like a
bundle of rags. Another bull killed four horses in a few minutes; a
third attacked a picador so violently that he fell, struck his head
against the barrier, fainted, and was carried out. But not for this nor
for a graver wound, nor even for the death of a torero, is the
spectacle interrupted—it is so stated in the programme; if one is
killed, another is ready. The bull does not always attack; there are
some cowardly ones which run toward the picador, stop, and after a
moment of hesitation run away; others, naturally gentle and placid, do
not in the least respond to provocations; they allow the picador to
approach them to plant his lance in their neck, back off, shake their
heads as if to say, “No, thank you!” run away, and then turn suddenly to
look with astonishment at the band of capeadores who follow them, as
though they would ask, “What do you want of us? What have we done? Why
do you wish to kill us?” Then the crowd bursts forth in imprecations
against the cowardly bulls, against the managers, and against the
toreros; and first one of the dilettanti over the toril, then the
spectators on the sunny side, then the gentlemen on the shady side, then
the ladies, then all the spectators in the circus, cry with one voice,
“Banderillas de fuego!” The cry is directed toward the mayor. The
banderillas of fire serve to infuriate the bull; they are
banderillas provided with a fire-cracker, which goes off at the moment
the point penetrates the flesh and burns the wound, causing extreme
pain; the animal is tortured and enraged to the point of changing from a
coward to a daredevil, from quietness to fury. The permission of the
mayor is required to use the banderillas de fuego: if he hesitates to
give it, all the spectators leap to their feet, and there follows a
wonderful sight: one sees ten thousand handkerchiefs waving like the
ensigns of ten regiments of lancers, from the boxes to the arena, all
the way around, forming a fluttering band of white which almost conceals
the crowd, and ten thousand voices cry, “Fuego! fuego! fuego!” Then the
mayor may yield, but if he is obstinate in his refusal, the
handkerchiefs disappear, fists and canes take their places, and curses
burst forth: “Don’t make a fool of yourself! don’t spoil the fun! The
banderillas for the mayor! fire for the mayor!”
The agony of the bull is terrible. Sometimes the torero does not
strike where he should, and the sword is buried to the hilt, but not in
the direction of the heart. Then the bull commences to run about the
arena with the sword sticking in his body, sprinkling the ground with
blood, bellowing deeply, writhing and twisting in a thousand ways to
free himself from that torture; and in his impetuous course sometimes
the sword flies out, sometimes it is driven deeper in and causes death.
The espada is frequently obliged to give the bull a second thrust, and
not rarely a third or a fourth; the blood flows in torrents; all the
capas of the capeadores are sprinkled; the espada is besmeared and
the barrier bespattered; everything is covered with blood; the indignant
spectators load the torero with abuse. Sometimes the bull falls to the
ground badly wounded, but does not die, and lies there motionless with
his head high and threatening, as if he would say, “Come on, assassins,
if you have the courage!” Then the struggle is ended, the agony must be
shortened: a mysterious man climbs the barrier, approaches with stealthy
steps, places himself behind the bull, and, watching his chance, gives
him a blow on the head with a dagger which penetrates to the brain and
kills him. Often this blow does not succeed, either; the mysterious man
must strike twice, thrice, or even four times; then the indignation of
the people bursts forth like a tempest. They call him an executioner, a
coward, an infamous wretch, wish he were dead, and if they had him in
their hands would strangle him like a dog. Sometimes the bull, mortally
wounded, staggers a little way before he falls, and, reeling with slow
step from the place where he was stricken, goes to die in peace in a
quiet corner; all the toreros follow him slowly at a short distance,
like a funeral train; the crowd watches all his movements, counts his
steps, measures the progress of his agony; profound silence attends his
last moments; his death has in it something majestic and solemn. There
are some indomitable bulls that will not bow the head even in drawing
the last breath—bulls that, while the blood runs in streams from their
mouths, still threaten; bulls pierced by ten sword-thrusts, stabbed, and
bleeding to death, that still raise their heads with a superb motion
which makes the crowd of their persecutors recede halfway across the
arena; bulls whose death-agony is more terrible than their first fury;
bulls that tear dead horses, break through the barrier, furiously
trample the capas scattered through the arena, jump into the course,
and run around with a high head, looking at the spectators with an air
of defiance, fall, rise again, and die bellowing.
The agony of the horses, though not so prolonged, is more dreadful. Some
have a leg broken by the bull, others the neck pierced through and
through; others are killed at one blow with a thrust of the horn in the
breast, without shedding a drop of blood; others, overcome with fear,
take to flight, and, running straight ahead, come in violent collision
with the barrier and fall down dead; others welter a long time in a pool
of blood before they die; others, wounded, bleeding, disembowelled, and
mutilated, still gallop about with desperate fury, run against the bull,
are felled to the ground, rise and fight again until they are carried
away, ruined but alive, and then the intestines are replaced, the belly
sewed up, and they serve again; others, terrified at the approach of the
beast, tremble violently, paw the ground, recoil, neigh, and do not wish
to die; and these most excite one’s pity. Sometimes a single bull kills
five horses; sometimes in a corrida twenty are killed; all the
picadores are drenched with blood; smoking entrails are scattered
through the arena, and the bulls grow tired of slaughter.
The toreros also have their ugly moments. The picadores now and
then, instead of falling under the horse, fall between the horse and the
bull; then the bull plunges forward to kill them; the crowd gives a cry,
but a brave capeador throws his capa over the bull’s eyes and at the
risk of his own life saves that of his comrade. Often, instead of
rushing at the muleta, the bull turns and rushes toward the espada,
grazes him, attacks and follows him, and obliges him to throw away his
weapon and save himself, pale and trembling, on the other side of the
barrier. Sometimes he strikes him with his head and throws him down; the
espada disappears in a cloud of dust; the crowd cries, “He is dead!”
but the bull passes, the espada is saved. Sometimes the bull rushes
unexpectedly, raises him with his head, and tosses him to one side. Not
infrequently the bull does not allow him to take aim with the sword; the
matador does not succeed in striking in the breast, and, as he is
compelled by the laws to strike in a given place, and in that place
only, he makes futile attempts for a long time, grows confused, and runs
a thousand chances of losing his life; meanwhile, the crowd howls,
hisses, and insults him, until finally the poor man in desperation
resolves to kill or to be killed, and strikes at random; and he either
succeeds and is lauded to the skies, or fails and is despised, derided,
and pelted with orange-peels, even though he may be the most intrepid,
bravest, and renowned torero in Spain.
In the crowd, too, a thousand incidents occur during the spectacle.
Suddenly two spectators fall to fighting. The people are so closely
packed that some one of the neighbors receives a blow from a cane; then
they seize their canes and join the fray. The circle of the combatants
grows wider; the row extends through entire compartments in the gallery;
in a few moments there are hats flying through the air, torn cravats,
bloody faces, a din which rises to heaven; all the spectators are on
their feet; the guards run about; the toreros cease to be actors and
become spectators. At other times a group of lively young fellows turn
in one direction and shout all together, “There he is!” “Who?” No one,
but meanwhile the persons next to them get up, and those at a distance
stand on the seats; the ladies lean from the boxes, and in a moment the
whole circus is topsy-turvy. Then the group of young men give a loud
laugh; their neighbors, so as not to appear ridiculous, do the same; the
laugh spreads to the boxes and through the galleries till ten thousand
people are laughing. At other times it is a foreigner, seeing his first
bull-fight, who faints; the news spreads in a trice; they all get up,
stare, shout, and make a pandemonium that baffles description. Again, it
is a good-humored man who hails his friend away on the other side of the
theatre in a voice which sounds like a clap of thunder. That great crowd
is stirred in a few moments with a thousand contrary emotions, passes
with incessant change from terror to enthusiasm, from enthusiasm to
pity, from pity to anger, from anger to delight, admiration, and
unbridled enjoyment.
The final impression which this spectacle makes upon the mind is
indescribable: it is a mingling of sensations, among which it is
impossible to recollect anything clearly or to know one’s thoughts. At
one moment you turn in horror to flee from the circus, and swear you
will never come back; a moment later, astonished, enraptured, and almost
intoxicated, you hope the spectacle will never end; now you are almost
sickened; now you, too, like your neighbors, shout, laugh, and applaud;
the blood makes you shudder, but the marvellous courage of the men
exalts you; the danger clutches at your heart, but you are reassured by
the victory; little by little the fever which works in the crowd steals
into your veins; you do not know yourself, you are another person; you
too are stirred by anger, ferocity, and enthusiasm; you feel bold and
valiant; the struggle fires your blood; the gleaming of the sword
enrages you; and then the thousands of faces, the clamor, the music, the
bellowing, the blood, the profound silences and tumultuous bursts of
applause, the vastness, the light, the colors, the indescribable
grandeur, courage, cruelty, and magnificence, dazzle, amaze, and
bewilder you.
It is a fine sight to see the people go out; there are ten torrents
which pour from ten gates and flood in a few moments the suburb of
Salamanca, the Prado, the avenues of the Recoletos, and the street
Alcalá; a thousand carriages wait at the exits of the circus; for an
hour, wherever one turns, one sees only a swarm of human ants as far as
the eye can reach; and all is silent: their passions have exhausted them
all; one hears only the roar of passing feet; it seems as if the crowd
wishes to steal away secretly; a sort of sadness succeeds their
clamorous joy. I, for my part, as I came from the circus for the first
time, had scarcely strength to stand on my feet; my head was spinning
like a top; my ears buzzed, and everywhere I saw the horns of bulls,
eyes swimming in blood, dead horses, and flashing swords. I took the
shortest way home, and as soon as I arrived there tumbled into bed and
fell into a heavy sleep.
On the following morning the landlady came in great haste to ask me,
“Well, how did it strike you? Did it amuse you? Are you going again?
What do you say?”
“I do not know,” I replied; “it seems like a dream. I will tell you
later; I must think it over.”
Saturday came, the day before the second bull-fight. “Are you going?”
asked the landlady. “No,” I replied, thinking of something else. I went
out, turned into the street Alcalá, and found myself accidentally in
front of the shop where tickets are sold; there was a crowd of people.
“Shall I go?” I asked myself. “Yes or no?”
“Do you want a ticket?” a boy demanded: “a shady seat, No. 6, near the
barrier—fifteen reales?” “Done!” I replied.
But to clearly comprehend the nature of this spectacle it is necessary
to know its history. No one knows certainly when the first bull-fight
took place: the tradition tells that the Cid Campeador was the first
cavalier to descend with his spear into the arena and on horseback kill
the terrible animal. Later, the young nobles devoted themselves with
great ardor to this sport; bull-fights were held at all the solemn
feasts, and only to the nobility was granted the honor of taking part in
them; even the kings entered the arena. All through the Middle Ages this
was the favorite spectacle of the court—the chosen exercise of
warriors, not only among the Spaniards, but among the Moors as well; and
they both waged war in the circus as well as on the battlefield.
Isabella the Catholic wished to prohibit the bull-fights, because she
had been horrified on once seeing them, but the numerous and powerful
patrons of the spectacle dissuaded her from putting her purpose into
effect. After Isabella the circus received great encouragement. Charles
V. with his own hand killed a bull in the great square of Valladolid;
Ferdinand Pizarro, the celebrated conqueror of Peru, was a valiant
torero; King Sebastian of Portugal won many laurels in the arena;
Philip III. adorned the circus of Madrid; Philip IV. fought in it;
Charles II. fostered the art; in the reign of Philip V. a number of
circuses were built by order of the government, but the honor of
fighting belonged exclusively to the nobility; they fought only on
horseback, splendidly mounted, and yet the only blood shed was that of
the bull.
It was not until the middle of the last century that the art became
popular, and toreros, properly called artists of the profession, who
fought on foot and on horseback, came into existence. The famous
Francisco Romero Deronda perfected the art of fighting on foot,
introduced the custom of killing the bull face to face with the sword
and muleta, and established the practice. Thereupon the spectacle
became national and the people welcomed it with enthusiasm. Charles III.
forbade it, but his prohibition only served to increase the popular
enthusiasm into a complete epidemic, as a Spanish chronicler puts it.
King Ferdinand VII., who was passionately fond of bulls, instituted a
school of bull-fighting at Seville. Isabella II. was more enthusiastic
than Ferdinand VII.; Amadeus I., it is said, was not a whit behind
Isabella II. And now bull-fighting flourishes more than ever before in
Spain; there are more than a hundred great proprietors who raise bulls
for the spectacles; Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, Cadiz, Valencia, Jerez,
and Puerto de Santa Maria have circuses of the first order; there are no
less than fifty small circuses, with a capacity of from three to nine
thousand spectators; in all the villages where there is no circus they
hold the corridas in the square. At Madrid they are held every Sunday,
and in the other cities whenever it is possible, and they are always
attended by a vast concourse of people from the neighboring cities,
villages, countryside, mountains, islands, and even from foreign
countries.
If is true that all the Spaniards are not mad over this spectacle; many
never attend; not a few disapprove, condemn, and would be glad to see it
driven out of Spain; some journalists now and then raise a cry of
protest; a deputy the day after a torero is killed talks of
petitioning the government; but its enemies are all timid and feeble.
On the other hand, apologies are written in defence of the bull-fights,
new circuses are built, old ones are renewed, and the foreigners who cry
out against Spanish barbarity are laughed to scorn.
The corridas held in the summer are not the only ones, nor is the
spectacle always equally good. In the circus there is an exhibition
every Sunday through the winter, but there are not those noble and fiery
bulls of the summer season, neither are there the great artists whom
Spain admires; there are bulls of smaller size and less courage, and
toreros not yet proficient in the art; but there is a spectacle, at
all events, and, although the king does not attend or the flower of the
citizens as in the summer-time, the circus is always well filled.
Little blood is shed, only two bulls are killed, and the spectacle
concludes with fireworks; it is an amusement fit for servants and
children, as the passionate lovers of the art say in deprecation.
But there is one episode in the winter spectacles which is especially
amusing. When the toreros have killed the toros de muerte, the arena
is placed at the disposal of the dilettanti; from every part the people
jump down, and in a moment there are a hundred workmen, scholars, and
street arabs, some with cloaks in their hands, others with shawls,
others with any sort of a rag, who crowd to right and left of the
toril ready to receive the bull. The door opens; a bull with swathed
horns rushes into the arena, and there follows an indescribable tumult;
the crowd surrounds, follows, and drags the bull here and there, hitting
him with their mantles and shawls, plaguing and tormenting him in a
thousand ways, until the poor animal, entirely exhausted, is driven from
the arena and another takes his place. It is incredible with what
audacity those boys dart under him, twist his tail, and jump on his
back; incredible too is the agility with which they dodge the blows.
Sometimes the bull with a sudden turn strikes some one, knocks him down,
tosses him in the air, or lifts him high on his horns; again he upsets
at one blow a half dozen, and bull and men disappear in a cloud of dust,
while the spectator fears for an instant that some one has been killed.
Nothing of the kind! The intrepid capeadores jump up with bruised
limbs and dusty faces, shrug their shoulders, and face him again. But
this is by no means the best episode of the winter spectacles. Sometimes
the bulls are confronted by toreras instead of toreros: these are
women dressed like tightrope-walkers, with faces before which not the
angels, but even Lucifer, would
“Make with his wings a cover for his eyes.”
The picadoras ride on mules; the espada—the one I saw was an old
woman of sixty, Martina by name, an Asturian, known in all the circuses
in Spain,—the espada fights on foot with the rapier, and the muleta
like the most intrepid matador of the stronger sex. The entire
cuadrilla is accompanied by a train of chulos with great wings and
humps on their backs. These unfortunate women risk their lives for forty
francs! A bull on the day when I witnessed the spectacle broke the arm
of one banderillera and tore the petticoat of another, so that she was
left in the middle of the circus with scarcely enough clothes on her
back to cover her nakedness.
After the women, the wild beasts. At various times they made the bull
fight with lions and with tigers; it is only a few years since one of
these combats was held in the circus of Madrid. It was that celebrated
event which the count-duke de Olivares commanded in honor of the
birthday, if my memory does not fail me, of Don Baltasar Carlos of
Asturia, prince of the Asturias. The bull fought with a lion, a tiger,
and a leopard, and succeeded in conquering them all. Also in a combat a
few years ago the tiger and the lion got the worst of it; they both
jumped impetuously upon the back of the bull, but before they were able
to fasten their teeth in his neck they fell to the ground in a pool of
blood, pierced by the terrible horns. Only the elephant—a huge elephant
which still lives in the gardens of Buen Retiro—carried the day; the
bull attacked him, and he simply placed his head on the bull’s back and
pressed, and the pressure was so delicate that his reckless assailant
was crushed as flat as a pancake.
But it is not easy to imagine what skill, what courage, and what
imperturbable tranquillity of mind must be possessed by a man who with
his sword faces an animal that kills lions, attacks elephants, and tears
in pieces, crushes, and covers with blood everything that he touches.
And there are men who face them every day.
The toreros are by no means artists, as one would suppose, to be
placed in the same category with mountebanks and those for whom the
people feel no other sentiment than that of admiration. The torero is
respected even outside of the circus; he enjoys the protection of the
young aristocrats, has his box in the theatre, frequents the best cafés
in Madrid, and is saluted in the street with a low bow by persons of
refinement. Famous espadas like Frascuelo, Lagartijo, and Cayetano
receive the nice little sum of about ten thousand francs a year; they
own houses and villas, live in sumptuous apartments, dress with
elegance, spend heaps of money on their costumes embroidered with gold
and silver, travel like nabobs, and smoke Havana cigars. Their dress out
of the circus is very curious: an Orsini hat of black velvet; a jacket
fitting closely around the waist, unbuttoned and reaching barely to the
trousers; a waistcoat opened almost to the waist, which allows a white
shirt of very fine texture to be seen; no cravat; a sash of red or blue
silk about the loins; a pair of breeches fitting the limb like the
tights of a ballet-dancer; a pair of low shoes, of morocco leather,
ornamented with embroidery; a little periwig falling down the back; and
then gold studs, chains, diamonds, rings, and trinkets; in short, an
entire jewelry-shop on their persons. Many keep their saddle-horse and
some their carriages, and when they are not killing bulls they are
always walking in the Prado, at the Puerto del Sol, or in the gardens of
Recoletos with their wives and their sweethearts, splendidly dressed and
proudly affectionate. Their names, their faces, and their deeds are even
better known to the people than the deeds, faces, and names of their
commanders and statesman. Toreros in comedies, toreros in song,
toreros in pictures, toreros in the windows of the
![[Image not available: Matadors, Madrid]](https://openoldbooks.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/books/spain-vol-1-2/images/illus-b240c_sml.jpg)
Matadors, Madrid
print-shops, statues of toreros, fans painted with toreros,
handkerchiefs with figures of toreros,—these one sees again and
again, on every occasion and in every place.
The business of the torero is the most lucrative and the most
honorable to which a courageous son of the people may aspire: very many,
in fact, devote themselves to it, but very few become proficient; most
of them remain mediocre capeadores, a few become banderilleros of
note, still fewer famous picadores; only the few chosen ones of nature
and fortune become brave espadas: it is necessary to come into the
world with that bump developed; one is born an espada as one is born a
poet. Those killed by the bulls are very few, and one may count them on
one’s fingers for a long period of time; but the crippled, the maimed,
those who are rendered unfit for the combat, are innumerable. One sees
them in the city with canes and crutches, some without an arm, others
without a leg. The famous Tato, the first of the toreros of modern
time, lost a leg; in the few months which I spent in Spain a
banderillero was half killed at Seville, a picador was seriously
wounded at Madrid, Lagartijo was injured, and three amateur capeadores
were killed at a village. There is scarcely a torero who has not bled
in the arena.
Before leaving Madrid I wished to talk to the celebrated Frascuelo, the
prince of espadas, the idol of the people of Madrid, the glory of the
art. A Genoese captain who knew him took it upon himself to present me:
we fixed the day and met at the Imperial Café at the Puerta del Sol. It
makes me laugh when I think of my emotions on seeing him in the distance
and watching him come toward us. He was very richly dressed, loaded with
jewelry, and resplendent as a general in full uniform; as he crossed the
café a thousand heads were turned and a thousand eyes fixed upon him, my
companion, and myself: I felt myself growing pale. “This is Signor
Salvador Sanchez,” said the captain (Frascuelo is a surname). And then,
presenting me to Frascuelo, “This is Signor So-and-So, his admirer.” The
illustrious matador bowed, I bowed more profoundly; we sat down and
commenced to talk. What a strange man! To hear him talk one would say
that he had not the heart to stick a fly with a pin. He was a young man,
about twenty-five years old, of medium stature, quick, dark, and
handsome, with a firm glance and the smile of an absent-minded man. I
asked him a thousand questions about his art and his life; he answered
in monosyllables; I was obliged to draw the words from his mouth, one by
one, by a storm of questions. He replied to my compliments by looking
modestly at the tips of his shoes. I asked him if he had ever been
wounded; he touched his knee, thigh, shoulder, and breast, and said,
“Here, and here, and here, and here too,” with the simplicity of a
child. He obligingly wrote out the address of his house for me, asked me
to come and see him, gave me a cigar, and went away. Three days later,
at the bull-fight, I had a seat near the barrier, and as he paused near
me to gather up the cigars which the spectators threw him, I tossed him
one of those Milan cigars which are covered with straw; he picked it up,
examined it, smiled, and tried to discover who had thrown it: I made a
sign, he saw me and exclaimed, “Ah! the Italian!” I seem to see him yet;
he was dressed in gray embroidered with gold, and one hand was stained
with blood.
But, in conclusion, a final judgment on the bull-fights! Are they or are
they not a barbarous sport, unworthy of a civilized people? Are they or
are they not a spectacle which corrupts the heart? Now for a frank
opinion! A frank opinion? I do not wish to answer in one way and to draw
upon myself a flood of invective, nor to answer otherwise and put my
foot in a trap, so I must confess that I went to the circus every
Sunday. I have told about it and described it: the reader knows as much
as I do; let him judge for himself and allow me to keep my own counsel.
I saw at Madrid the famous funereal ceremony which is celebrated every
year on the second of May in honor of the Spaniards who died in battle
or were killed by the French soldiery eighty-seven years ago, on that
terrible day which filled Europe with horror and led to the outbreak of
the War of Independence.
At dawn there was a booming of cannon, and in all the parish churches of
Madrid and before an altar erected near the monument they began to
celebrate mass, and continued to do so until nightfall. The ceremony
consists of a solemn procession, which usually forms in the vicinity of
the royal palace, proceeds to the church of Saint Isadore, where until
1840 were interred the bones of the dead, to listen to a sermon, and
then to march on to the monument to hear mass.
In all the streets where the procession is to pass there are drawn up
the volunteer battalions, the regiments of infantry, squadrons of
cuirassiers, the civil foot-guard, the artillery, and cadets; everywhere
bugles and drums are sounding and bands are playing; one sees in the
distance, over the heads of the crowd, a continual passing of the hats
of generals, the tossing plumes of adjutants, banners, and swords; all
the streets are full of the carriages of members of the Senate and the
Cortes, as large as triumphal chariots, gilded even to the wheels,
upholstered in velvet and silk, adorned with fringes and tassels, and
drawn by superbly plumed horses. The windows of all the houses are
ornamented with tapestry and flowers; the whole populace of Madrid is
astir.
I saw the procession pass through the street Alcalá. First came the
huntsmen of the city militia; then the boys from all the schools,
refuges, and hospitals of Madrid—thousands of them, two by two; then
the wounded veterans of the army, some on crutches, some with bandaged
heads, some supported by their companions, some so feeble that they had
to be almost carried—soldiers and generals in their old uniforms, with
their breasts covered with medals and lace, with long swords and plumed
hats; then a crowd of the officers of the various corps, shining with
gold and silver and dressed in a thousand colors; then the high officers
of state, the provincial deputies, the members of Congress, the
senators; then the heralds of the municipality and the chambers, with
flowing robes of velvet and maces of silver; then all the municipal
clerks and all the judges of Madrid, dressed in black with medallions at
their throats; finally, the king in a general’s uniform, on foot,
accompanied by the mayor, the captain-general of the province, the
generals, ministers, deputies, officers of ordnance, and aides-de-camp,
all with bared heads. The procession was ended by a hundred mounted
guards, resplendent as the warriors of the Middle Ages; the royal guard
on foot with great shakos, after the fashion of the Napoleonic guard;
red swallow-tail coats, white breeches, wide shoulder-belts crossed
over the breast, black gaiters to the knee, swords, epaulets, cordons,
buckles, and ornaments; then the volunteers, soldiers, infantry,
artillery; and the people. They all marched with slow step; all the
bands played, the bells tolled; the people were silent, and altogether,
the children of the poor, the priests, magistrates, wounded veterans,
and the grandees of Spain, presented an appearance of dignity and
magnificence which inspired at the time a feeling of sympathy and
reverence.
The procession turned into the Prado and proceeded toward the monument.
The avenues, the lawns, and the gardens were full of people. Ladies were
standing in their carriages, on chairs, and on the stone seats, holding
their children in their arms; there were people in the trees and on the
roofs; at every step there were banners, funeral inscriptions, lists of
the victims of the second of May; poems pinned to the trunks of trees,
newspapers with borders of black, prints representing episodes of the
massacre, wreaths, crucifixes, little tables with urns for alms, lighted
candles, pictures, statuettes, and toys for children, with a model of
the monument—everywhere memorials of 1808, emblems and signs of sorrow,
festivity, and war. The men were almost all dressed in black; the women
in gay holiday attire, with long funeral trains and veils; there were
groups of peasants from all the surrounding villages dressed in lively
colors, and through all the crowd one heard the discordant cries of
water-carriers, guards, and officers.
The monument of the second of May, which stands at that point where the
greater number of Spaniards were shot, though it does not possess an
artistic value equal to its fame, is—to use a much-abused though
significant word—imposing. It is simple and bold, and to many appears
heavy and ungraceful; but it arrests one’s glance and one’s thought,
even if one does not know what it is; for on first seeing it one
perceives that some event of importance must have transpired in that
place. Above an octagonal base of four steps rises a great square
sarcophagus adorned with inscriptions and arms and a bas-relief
representing the two Spanish officers who were killed on the second of
May in the defence of the Artillery Park. On the sarcophagus rises a
pedestal in the Doric style, on which stand four statues, symbolic of
Patriotism, Bravery, Constancy, and Virtue. In the midst of the statues
rises a high obelisk which bears in characters of gold the words, Dos
de Mayo. Around the monument there extends a circular garden
intersected by eight avenues which converge toward a common centre; all
of the avenues are shaded by rows of cypresses, and the garden is
enclosed by an iron railing, which in its turn is encircled by marble
steps. This grove of cypresses, this solitary enclosed garden in the
midst of the gayest promenade of Madrid, is like a vision of death
mingling with the joys of life; one cannot pass without turning to look
at it, and one cannot look at it without thinking: at night, as it lies
in the moonlight, it seems like a fantastic apparition and breathes an
air of solemn mystery.
The king arrived, mass was celebrated, all the regiments marched past,
and the ceremony was ended. So to the present time they celebrate the
anniversary of the second of May, 1808, with a dignity, an affection,
and a veneration which do honor not alone to the Spanish people, but to
the human heart. It is the true national festival of Spain, the only day
in the year when party strife sleeps and all hearts are united in a
common sentiment. And in this sentiment, as one can readily believe,
there is no bitterness against France. Spain has thrown all the blame of
the war and the massacres which it occasioned upon Napoleon and Murat;
the French are welcomed amicably, like all other foreigners; the
ill-fated days of May are mentioned only to celebrate the honor of the
dead and of their country; everything in this ceremony is noble and
grand, and before that sacred monument Spain has only words of pardon
and peace.
Another thing to be seen at Madrid is the cock-fighting.
I read one day in the Correspondencia the following notice: “En la
funcion que se celebrarà mañana en el circo de Gallos de Recoletos,
hubrà, entre otras dos peleas, en las que figurarán gallos de los
conocidos aficionados Francisco Calderón y Don Josè Diez, por lo que se
espera serà muy animada la diversion.”
The spectacle commenced at noon: I was there. I was impressed by the
originality and grace of the theatre. It looks like a mosque standing on
a little hill in a garden, but yet is large enough to hold at least a
thousand persons. In form it is a perfect cylinder. In the middle rises
a sort of a circular stage about three hands high, covered with green
carpet and surrounded by a railing about as high as the platform; this
is the battle-ground of the cocks. Between the iron uprights of the
railing is stretched a very fine wire netting which keeps the combatants
from making their escape. Around this cage, which is about as large as a
dining-table, runs a circle of arm-chairs, and behind them a second
higher circle, and both of them are upholstered in red cloth. Several of
the chairs on the first row bear inscriptions written in big letters,
Presidente, Secretario, and other titles of the persons who compose
the tribunal of the spectacle. Beyond the arm-chairs rise tiers of
benches running back to the walls, and above them extends a gallery
supported by ten slender columns. The light comes from above. The lively
red of the arm-chairs, the flowers painted on the walls, the columns,
the light, and, in a word, the atmosphere of the theatre, have about
them something novel and picturesque which pleases and exhilarates. At
first sight it seems like a place where one ought to listen to joyous
and refined music rather than witness a fight between animals.
When I entered there were already a hundred persons present. “What sort
of people are these?” I asked myself, and truly the frequenters of the
cock-fights do not resemble those of any other theatre: it is a mixture
sui generis, such as one sees only in Madrid. There are no women, no
boys, no soldiers, and no working-men, for it is a work-day and at an
inconvenient hour. But, nevertheless, one sees here a greater variety of
feature, dress, and attitude than at any other popular gathering. The
spectators are all persons who have nothing to do the livelong
day—comedians with long hair and others with bald heads;
toreros—Calderón, the famous picador, was there—with red sashes
around their waists; students bearing on their faces the trace of nights
spent at the gaming-table; dealers in cocks; young dandies; old amateur
fanciers dressed in black with black gloves and cravats. These sit
around the cage. Behind them are the rari nantes, some Englishmen,
some blockheads, of the class one sees everywhere; the servants of the
circus, a courtesan, and a policeman. With the exception of the
foreigners and the guard, the others—gentlemen, toreros, dealers,
and actors—all know each other, and talk among themselves, in one
voice, of the quality of the cocks announced in the programme, of the
exhibition, the bets made the previous day, the chances of the struggle,
the talons, feathers, spurs, wings, beaks, and wounds, displaying the
very rich terminology of the sport and citing rules, examples, the cocks
of former days, fights, and famous winnings and losses.
The spectacle began at the appointed hour. A man presented himself in
the middle of the circus with a paper in his hand and commenced to read;
they all became silent. He read a series of figures which indicated the
weight of the different pairs of cocks that were to fight, because, pair
by pair, the one cock must not weigh more than the other, in accordance
with the rules laid down for cock-fighting. The conversation began
again, and then was suddenly hushed. Another man came in with two small
cages under his arm, opened a gate in the railing, stepped up on the
platform, and fastened the cages to the arms of a pair of balances
suspended from the ceiling. Two witnesses assured themselves that the
weights on the two ends were almost equal; everybody sat down; the
president took his position; the secretary cried Silencio! the weigher
and another attendant each took one of the cages, and, going to opposite
doors in the railing, opened them simultaneously. The cocks stepped out,
the gates were closed, and for some moments the spectators observed a
profound silence.
They were two Andalusian cocks of English breed, to repeat a curious
definition given me by one of the spectators. They were tall, thin, and
straight as arrows, with long necks, very flexible and totally bare of
feathers along the back and from the breast up; they were without
crests, and had small heads and eyes which betokened their warlike
nature. The spectators looked at them closely without saying a word. The
fanciers in a few moments judge by the color, the form, and the
movements of the two animals which will probably be the victor; then
they offer their bets. It is a very uncertain judgment, as any one may
understand, but it is the uncertainty which gives zest to the sport.
Suddenly the silence is broken by an outburst of cries: “A crown on the
right one!”—“A crown on the left!”—“Done!”—“Three crowns on the
black!”—“Four crowns on the gray!”—“Eighty francs on the small
one!”—“Done!”—“I take the bet on the gray!”
They all shout and wave their hands, and signal to each other with their
canes; the bets cross in every direction, and in a few moments there are
a thousand francs at stake.
The two cocks do not look at each other at first. One turns in one
direction, the other looks the opposite way; they crow, and crane their
necks toward the spectators, as if they are asking, “What do you want?”
Little by little, without making any sign of having seen each other,
they approach; it seems as though one is trying to take the other by
surprise; suddenly, as quick as a flash, they spring at each other with
open wings, strike in the air, and separate in a cloud of feathers.
After the first encounter they stop and plant themselves one before the
other, with their heads and beaks almost touching, motionless, and
looking fixedly, as though they wish to poison each other with their
eyes. Then they dash together again with great violence, and after that
the attacks follow without interruption.
They strike with their talons, spurs, and beaks; clasp each other with
their wings, so that they look like one cock with two heads; they dodge
under each other, strike against the wires of the cage, chase each
other, fall, slip, and fly. Soon the blows fall faster; feathers fly
from their heads; their necks turn as red as fire and they begin to
bleed. Then they fall to pecking each other on the head, around and in
the eyes; they tear the flesh with the fury of two maniacs afraid of
being separated; they seem to know that one of them must die; they utter
not a sound or a groan; one hears only the beating of their wings, the
sound of breaking feathers and of beaks striking the bones; there is not
a moment’s respite; it is a fury which leads only to death.
The spectators watch all their motions intently, count the fallen
feathers, and number the wounds, and the shouting becomes all the time
more excited and the wagers heavier: “Five crowns on the little
one!”—“Eight crowns on the gray!”—“Twenty crowns on the
black!”—“Done”—“Done!”
At a certain point one of the cocks makes a motion that betrays his
inferior strength and begins to show signs of weakening. While he still
resists his pecks become slower, the strokes of his spurs feebler, and
his springs lower. He seems to know that he must die. He fights no
longer to kill, but to keep from being killed, retreats, flees, falls,
raises himself, returns to fall again, reels as though seized with
vertigo. Then the spectacle begins to grow horrible. Before the failing
enemy the victor grows fiercer; his pecks fall fast and furious,
striking the eyes of his victim with the regularity of the needle of a
sewing-machine; his neck flies back and forth with the strength of a
spring; his beak seizes the flesh, twists and tears it, then darts into
the wound as if seeking for the most secret fibre; then he pecks the
head again and again as though he wishes to crack the skull and tear out
the brain. There are no words to express the horror of that pecking,
continuous, insatiable, inexorable. The victim defends himself, flees,
and runs around the cage, and after him, beside him, hovering over him
like a shadow, with his head stretched over that of the fugitive,
follows the victor like a confessor, always pecking, piercing, and
tearing. He has about him the air of a jailer and executioner; he seems
to be whispering in the ear of his victim and to accompany every blow
with an insult: “There! take that! suffer! die! No! live; take this blow
and this, and still another!” A little of the cock’s sanguinary fury is
instilled into your veins; that cowardly cruelty inspires a longing for
revenge; one would strangle the creature with one’s hands and crush its
head with one’s feet. The conquered cock, all bedraggled with blood,
featherless, and tottering, still tries now and then to return the
attack, gives a few pecks, turns to flee, and dashes against the irons
of the railing to find a way of escape.
The bettors become more excited and shout even louder than before. They
can no longer bet on the struggle, and so begin to bet on the agony:
“Five crowns that it does not make three attacks!”—“Ten crowns that it
does not make five!”—“Four crowns that it does not make
two!”—“Done!”—“Done!”
At this point I heard a remark which made me shudder: “Es ciego!” (“It
is blind.”)
I approached the netting, looked at the conquered cock, and averted my
face in horror. It had no skin, it had no eyes; its neck was only a
bloody bone, its head a skull; its wings, reduced to three or four
feathers, hung down like two rags; it seemed impossible that wounded as
it was it could still live and walk; it no longer had any form.
Nevertheless, that remnant, that monster, that skeleton dripping with
blood, still defended itself and fought on in the dark, raising its
broken wings like two stumps, stretching out its fleshless neck, shaking
its skull at random, here and there, like a new-born puppy.
It was so disgusting and horrible that I closed my eyes to blur the
sight. And the executioner continued to peck at the wounds, to pierce
its eyeballs and beat its naked skull; it was no longer a fight; it was
torture; it seemed as though the cock wished to torment without killing;
sometimes, when its victim remained still for a moment, it bent over and
examined it with the scrutiny of an anatomist; sometimes it stepped off
and looked down at it with the indifference of a grave-digger; then,
again, it would leap upon it with the greed of a vampire, peck, suck,
and tear it as vigorously as at first. Finally, the dying fowl stopped
suddenly, bent its head to the ground as though overcome by sleep, and
its executioner looked at it attentively and desisted.
Then the shouting was redoubled; it was no longer possible to bet on the
convulsions of its agony, so they bet on the symptoms of death: “Five
crowns that it will never raise its head!”—“Three crowns that it raises
it twice!”—“Done!”—“Done!”
The dying cock slowly raised its head; the ready executioner leaped upon
it with a storm of blows; the shouting burst out again; the victim made
another slight movement, received another pecking, shook itself;
received another blow; blood rushed from its mouth; it tottered and
fell. The victor, coward that he was, began to crow. An attendant came
and carried them both away.
All the spectators jumped to their feet and a clamorous conversation
followed; the winners laughed loud and long, the losers swore, and one
and all discussed the merits of the cocks and the chances of the
struggle: “A good fight!”—“Good cocks!”—“Poor cocks!”—“They were no
good!”—“You don’t understand it, sir!”—“Good!”—“Bad!”
“Be seated, caballeros!” cried the president; they all sat down, and
another fight started.
I glanced toward the battlefield and went out. Some may not believe it,
but that spectacle seemed to me more horrible than my first bull-fight.
I had no idea of such ferocious cruelty; I did not believe until I saw
it that one animal, after rendering another powerless, would be able to
abuse, torment, and torture it in that manner with the fury of hate and
the luxury of revenge; I had not believed that the rage of a beast could
reach the point of presenting the character of the most extravagant
human vice. Even now—and it is a long time since—whenever I remember
that spectacle I involuntarily turn my head to one side as if to avoid
the horrible sight of that dying cock, and I never chance to place my
hand on a railing without casting down my eyes with the expectation of
seeing the ground sprinkled with feathers and blood. If you go to Spain,
take my advice, gentlefolk, and be content with the bulls.
Before leaving for Andalusia, I went to see the famous convent of the
Escurial, the Leviathan of architecture, the eighth wonder of the world,
the grandest pile of granite on the earth; and if you wish other
high-sounding names, you have only to create them, but you will find
none that has not previously been applied to the edifice. I left Madrid
early in the morning.
The village of the Escurial, which gives the convent its name, lies
about eight leagues from the city, a short distance from the Guadarrama;
the road crosses a desolate, arid plain bounded by a horizon of
snow-clad mountains. When I arrived at the station of the Escurial a
cold, drizzling rain was falling, which chilled me through.
From the station to the village there is a climb of half a mile. I
entered a diligence, and after a few minutes’ ride was set down in a
solitary street bordered on the left by the convent, and on the right by
the houses of the village, and closed in the distance by the mountains.
At the first sight one can make out nothing clearly: one expected to
see a building, and sees a city; one does not know whether one is
already in the convent or still outside of it; on every side there are
walls; one goes forward, and finds one’s self in a square, looks around,
and sees streets, but has scarcely entered these before the convent
again closes around, and one has lost one’s bearings and does not know
which way to turn. The first feeling is one of sadness. The entire
building is of dirt-colored stone pointed with white lines; the roofs
are covered with plates of lead. It seems like a building of earth. The
walls are very high and bare, and there are a great number of windows,
which look like loopholes. One would call it a prison rather than a
convent. Everywhere one sees that sombre, dead color; there is not a
living soul stirring, and the silence of an abandoned fortress broods
over it; beyond the black roofs rises the black mountain, which seems to
hang over the edifice and give it an air of mysterious solitude. The
place, the lines, the colors, everything, seems to have been chosen by
the founder for the purpose of offering to the eyes of man a sad and
solemn spectacle.
Before entering you have lost your gaiety; you no longer smile; you
think. You are arrested at the doors of the Escurial by a sort of
trepidation, as at the gates of a desolate city; it seems that if the
terrors of the Inquisition still linger in any corner of the earth,
they must be found within these walls; you would say that here one might
see its last traces and listen to its last echo.
Every one knows that the basilica and convent of the Escurial were
founded by Philip II. after the battle of San Quintino, in fulfilment of
a vow to Saint Lawrence made during the siege where the besieging force
was obliged to storm a church consecrated to that saint. Don Juan
Batista of Toledo began the work, and Herrera finished it; twenty years
were spent in its construction. Philip II. wished the edifice to present
the form of a gridiron, in commemoration of the martyrdom of Saint
Lawrence, and such indeed is its form. The foundation is a rectangular
parallelogram.
At the four corners rise four great square towers with pointed roofs,
which represent the four feet of the gridiron; the church and the royal
palace, which rise on one side, are symbolic of the handle, the interior
buildings, which connect the two sides lengthwise, answer for the
cross-bars. Other smaller buildings rise beyond the parallelogram at a
short distance from the convent, and extend along one of the longer
sides and one of the courts, forming two great squares; on the other two
sides are gardens. The façades, the doorways, the vestibules—everything
is in harmony with the grandeur and dignity of the edifice, and it is
useless to add description to description. The royal palace is most
splendid, and it is well to see it before entering the convent and the
church, so as not to confuse the different impressions. This palace
occupies the north-east corner of the structure. Some of the rooms are
full of paintings; others hung from floor to ceiling with tapestries
designed by Goya, representing bull-fights, popular balls, sports,
festivals, and Spanish costumes; others royally furnished and adorned;
the pavement, the doors, the windows covered with marvellous workmanship
in mosaic and superb gilding.
But the chamber of Philip II. is the important one among all these
rooms—a cell rather than a room, bare and squalid, with an alcove which
opens into the royal oratory of the church, so that from the bed, when
the doors are closed, one may see the priests saying mass. Philip II.
slept in that cell, there he had his last sickness, and there he died.
One may still see some chairs which he used, his writing-desk, and two
small benches on which he rested his gouty leg. The walls are white, the
ceiling is flat and without ornament, and the floor is of brick.
After seeing the royal palace one leaves the building, crosses the
square, and re-enters by the principal doorway. A guide attaches himself
to your person; you are led through a large vestibule and find yourself
in the Courtyard of the Kings.
Then, for the first time, you are able to form an idea of the vast
skeleton of the edifice. The courtyard is entirely surrounded by walls;
on the side opposite the doorway rises the façade of the church. From
the spacious platform rise six enormous Doric columns, each of which
supports a great pedestal and every pedestal a statue. There are six
colossal statues by Battista Monegro, representing Jehosaphat, Ezekiel,
David, Solomon, Joshua, and Manasseh. The courtyard is paved with stone
sprinkled with bits of mouldy turf; the walls look like rocks cut in
vertical lines; everything is rigid, massive, and heavy, and offers the
fantastic appearance of a building carved by Titans out of the solid
mountain, ready to defy the shocks of time and the thunderbolts of
heaven. There one begins to understand what the Escurial is.
One mounts the platform and enters the church.
The interior of the church is bare and gloomy; four enormous pilasters
of gray granite bear up the vaulted roof painted in fresco by Luca
Giordano; beside the great altar, carved and gilded in the Spanish
style, and between the columns of the two royal oratories, one sees two
groups of bronze statues, kneeling figures with clasped hands stretched
toward the altar—on the right, Charles V., the empress Isabella, and
several princesses; on the left, Philip II. with his wives. Over the
doorway of the church, thirty feet from the ground, at the end of the
great nave, rises the choir, with two rows of seats, in the Corinthian
style and simple in design. In a corner near a secret door is the seat
where Philip II. used to sit. Through that door he received letters and
important despatches without being seen by the priests chanting in the
choir. This church, which, compared with the whole edifice, seems very
small, is nevertheless one of the largest churches in Spain, and,
although it appears so devoid of ornament, contains a vast wealth of
marbles, gold, relics, and paintings, which a dim light in part
conceals, and from which the attention is diverted by the gloominess of
the building. Besides the thousand works of art which one sees in the
chapels, in the rooms which open out of the church, and on the
staircases which lead to the galleries, there is in a corridor behind
the choir a superb white marble crucifix, the work of Benvenuto Cellini,
which bears the inscription, Benvenutus Zalinus, civis Florentinus,
facebat 1562. In other parts one sees paintings by Navarrete and
Herrera. But all surprise is overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness. The
color of the stone, the dim light, the profound silence which encircles
you incessantly draw your thoughts to the vastness, the hidden recesses,
and the solitude of the edifice, and leave no place for the indulgence
of your admiration. The appearance of that church inspires an
inexpressible sense of restlessness. You would know by intuition, if you
had not learned it otherwise, that around those walls for a long
distance extend only granite, shadows, and silence; you feel that
measureless structure without seeing it; you feel that you are standing
in the midst of a forsaken city; you would hasten your steps to see it
at once, to free yourself from the incubus of that mystery, and to seek,
if anywhere they might be found, light, noise, and life.
From the church, through several bare, cold rooms, one passes into the
sacristy, a large, vaulted chamber, along one of whose walls runs an
unbroken row of wardrobes made of various fine woods. It contains also a
series of paintings by Ribera, Giordano, Zurbarán, Tintoretto, and other
Spanish and Italian painters; and at the end stands the famous altar of
the Santa forma, with the very celebrated painting of poor Claude
Coello, who died of a broken heart when Luca Giordano was summoned to
the Escurial. The effect of this painting is truly above all
expectation. It represents with life-size figures the procession which
once marched to place the Santa forma in that very spot; it depicts
the sacristy and the altar, the prior kneeling on the steps, with the
casket and the sacred Host in his hands; around him are grouped the
deacons on one side, Charles II. on his knees, and beyond the monks,
priests, collegians, and the other worshippers. The figures are so
life-like and natural, the perspective so true, the coloring, shading,
and light so effective, that on first entering the sacristy one
mistakes the painting for a mirror which reflects a religious ceremony
being celebrated at that moment in the next room. Then the illusion
vanishes, but one is still deceived as to the background of the picture,
and it is actually necessary to approach close enough to touch it before
one believes that it is only a painted canvas and not another sacristy.
On the festival days the canvas is rolled up, and there appears in the
centre of a little chapel a small temple of gilded bronze, within which
one sees a magnificent casket, which contains the sacred Host, adorned
with ten thousand rubies, diamonds, amethysts, and garnets arranged in
the form of dazzling rays.
From the sacristy we went to the Pantheon. A guide led the way with a
lighted torch: we descended a long granite staircase and came to a
subterranean door, where not a single ray of light penetrated. Over this
door one reads the following inscription in gilded letters of bronze:
“God great and omnipotent!
“A place consecrated by the piety of the Austrian dynasty to the mortal
remains of the Catholic kings, who are looking for that day of their
desire, under the great altar sacred to the Redeemer of the human race.
Charles V., the most illustrious of the Cæsars, desired this for the
last resting-place of himself and his lineage; Philip II., the most
prudent of kings, planned it; Philip III., a monarch of sincere piety,
made a beginning of the work; Philip IV., great in his clemency,
constancy, and devotion, enlarged, adorned, and brought it to completion
in the year of our Lord 1654.”
The guide entered: I followed him and found myself surrounded by
sepulchres, or rather in a sepulchre, as dark and cold as a grotto in a
mountain-side. It is a little octagonal chamber built entirely of
marble, with a small altar on the side opposite the door, and in the
remaining space from floor to ceiling, one above the other, tombs
adorned with bronze ornaments and bas-reliefs; the ceiling is under the
great altar in the church. To the right of the altar are the tombs of
Charles V., Philip II., Philip III., Philip IV., Louis I., the three Don
Carlos, and Ferdinand VII.; on the left, the empresses and queens. The
guide placed his torch near the tomb of Maria Louisa of Savoy, the
spouse of Charles III., and said to me with an air of mystery, “Read.”
The marble is ruled in different directions; with a little study I was
able to distinguish five letters; they form the name Luisa, written by
the queen herself with the point of her scissors.
Suddenly the guide extinguished his torch and we were left in the dark;
the blood froze in my veins. “Light it!” I cried. The guide laughed a
long, ghostly laugh, which seemed to me like a death-rattle, and
replied, “Look!” I looked: a faint ray of light, entering through a
chink near the ceiling, stole along the wall almost to the pavement,
shedding light
![[Image not available: Tomb of Charles V, Escurial]](https://openoldbooks.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/books/spain-vol-1-2/images/illus-b266c_sml.jpg)
Tomb of Charles V, Escurial
enough merely to make visible some tombs of the queens: it seemed like a
beam of moonlight, and the bas-reliefs and the bronzes on the tombs
gleamed in that uncanny glimmer as though they were dripping with water.
At that moment I perceived, for the first time, the odor of that
sepulchral air, and a tremor of fear seized me: in imagination I entered
those tombs and saw all those stiffened corpses; I sought an escape
through the vaulted roof, and found myself alone in the church. I fled
from the church and lost myself in the labyrinth of the convent;
presently I came to myself in the midst of the tombs, and felt that I
was truly in the heart of that monstrous edifice, in its deepest part. I
seemed to be a prisoner entombed in that mountain of granite, which was
everywhere closing in upon me and pressing me on all sides, and would
finally crush me, and I thought, with indescribable sadness, of the sky,
the country, and the free air as of another world, “Sir,” said the guide
solemnly before going out, extending his hand toward the tomb of Charles
V., “the emperor is there, just as he was when they placed him there,
with his eyes still open, so that he seems alive and speaking: it is a
miracle of God performed for purposes of his own. He who lives will
see.” And speaking these last words, he made the sign of the cross, as
though he was afraid the emperor might hear, and led the way to the
stairs.
After the church and the sacristy one goes to visit the
picture-gallery, which contains a great number of paintings by artists
of every nation, although not the best examples, for they were taken to
the Madrid gallery, but, at any rate, paintings of sufficient merit to
warrant a visit of a few hours.
From the picture-gallery one proceeds to the library by the great
staircase, over which rises a high vaulted ceiling wholly covered with
frescoes by Luca Giordano. The library consists of a hall of great size
adorned with large allegorical pictures: it contains more than fifty
thousand precious volumes, four thousand of which were presented by
Philip II. There is also another room, containing a very rich collection
of manuscripts.
From the library one goes to the convent. Here the imagination of man is
lost. If any of my readers has read the Estudiante de Salamanca of
Espronceda, he will remember how that indefatigable youth, in pursuing a
mysterious lady whom he met at night at the foot of the chapel stairs,
followed her from street to street, from square to square, from alley to
alley, turning and twisting and going in circles, until he reached a
point where he saw no longer the houses of Salamanca, but found himself
in an unknown city, and how, as he continued to turn corners, cross
squares, and hurry through the streets, the city seemed to enlarge as he
advanced, and the streets to stretch away, and the alleys to make a
thicker network, and how he went on and ever on without rest, not
knowing whether he was asleep or awake, drunken or mad; and fear began
to penetrate his iron heart and the strangest fancies crowded upon his
bewildered mind. So is it with the stranger in the convent of the
Escurial.
You pass through a long subterranean corridor, so narrow that you can
touch the walls with your elbows, so low that your head almost strikes
the ceiling, and damp as a submarine grotto, until you reach the end,
turn around, and find yourself in another corridor. You go forward, come
to doors and look through them: other corridors stretch away as far as
the eye can reach. At the end of one you may see a ray of light, at the
end of another an open door which allows you to peep into a suite of
rooms. Now and then you hear the echo of a passing footstep; you stop
and the sound dies away; then it comes again, but you cannot tell
whether it is over your head, to the right or left, behind or in front.
You step up to a door and turn back terrified. At the end of the
interminable corridor along which your glance has run you have seen a
man standing motionless as a spectre, looking at you. You hurry on and
come out into a narrow courtyard surrounded by very high walls,
grass-grown, hollow-sounding, and lighted by a wan light which seems to
descend from an unknown sun—places like the courts of the witches of
which they told us in our childhood.
You leave the courtyard, mount a flight of stairs, enter an upper
gallery, and look around: it is another court, silent and deserted. You
turn down another corridor, climb another staircase, and find yourself
in a third court; then, again, corridors and stairs and suites of empty
rooms and narrow courtyards; and everywhere granite, grass, a sickly
light, and a sepulchral silence. For a little while you think you can
retrace your steps; then the mind becomes confused, and you remember
nothing; it seems as though you had walked ten miles—that you have been
a month in this labyrinth and can never escape.
You approach a courtyard and say, “I have seen this already.” No, you
are mistaken; it is another. You believe that you are in a certain part
of the edifice when you are in the opposite part. You ask the guide
where the cloister is, and he replies, “This is it,” and you walk on for
half an hour. You seem to be dreaming: you see a succession of long
walls flitting past, frescoed, hung with paintings, crosses, and
inscriptions; you see and forget and ask yourself, “Where am I?”
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—unreal, gloomy, and
fantastic. And 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., and seem to hear
his heavy footsteps slowly retreating through the dark passages; 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 Escurial is
Philip II. You see it at every step, you feel it at every breath; he is
still there, alive and terrible, with the image of his dreadful God.
Then you would rebel and raise your thoughts to the God of your heart
and your aspirations, and conquer the mysterious terror which the place
inspires, but you cannot: the Escurial surrounds, holds, and crushes
you; the chill of its walls penetrates to your marrow; the gloom of its
sepulchral labyrinthine passages invades your soul; if you were with a
friend, you would say, “Let us go out;” if perchance you were with a
loved one, you would clasp her to your heart in trepidation; if you were
alone, you would flee. Finally, you climb a staircase, enter a room,
approach a window, and with a cry of gratitude hail the mountains, the
sun, liberty, and the great and beneficent God who loves and pardons.
What a long breath you draw at that window!
From it you see the gardens, which fill but a small space and are very
simple; but who can tell how elegant and beautiful they are, and in
what perfect harmony with the building? You see twelve graceful
fountains, each surrounded by four plots of myrtle, which represent
royal shields, designed with exquisite taste and trimmed with such
nicety that as one looks down at them from the windows they look like
fabrics of plush and velvet, and form a very grateful contrast to the
white sand of the paths. There are no trees, flowers, nor arbors: in all
the garden one sees only the fountains, the plots of myrtle, and the two
colors, green and white; and so charming is that dignified simplicity
that one cannot bear to leave it, and when one has looked away the
memory returns there and rests with a sweet subdued sense of pensive
sadness.
In a room near that from which I looked at the garden the guide made me
look at a collection of relics, which I examined in silence, without
allowing him to suspect my secret feeling of doubt. There is a piece of
the Holy Cross, presented by the Pope to Isabella II.; a bit of wood
stained with the blood of Saint Lawrence, which is still visible; Saint
Theresa’s inkhorn, and other objects, among them a little portable altar
which belonged to Charles V., a crown of thorns, a pair of tweezers used
for torture, found I know not where. Thence I was led to the dome of the
church, from which one enjoys a splendid view. On one side the view
extends over all the mountainous country which lies between the
Escurial and Madrid; on the other one sees the snowy mountains of
Guadarrama; below one comprehends at a glance the whole of the
measureless edifice, the long lead-colored roofs, the towers, the
courtyards, the cloisters, the porticoes, and the galleries; one may
pass in thought through the thousand windings of the corridors and
stairways, and say, “An hour ago I was below there—here—up there—down
there—over yonder,” marvelling that one has made so great a journey,
and delighted to have escaped from that labyrinth, those tombs and
shadows, and to be able to return to the city and see one’s friends
again.
An illustrious traveller has said that after passing a day in the
Escurial one ought to be happy throughout the rest of one’s life, with
the single thought that one might still be within those walls; and it is
almost true: even now, after so long a time, on rainy days, when I am
feeling sad, I think of the Escurial, and then look at the walls of my
room and congratulate myself; in sleepless nights I see again the
courtyards of the Escurial; when I am sick and my sleep is broken and
uneasy, I dream of wandering through those 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, until I rush headlong into the
Pantheon, and the door clashes on my heels, and I remain entombed among
the sepulchres. With what pleasure did I see again the thousand lights
of the Puerta del Sol, the crowded cafés, and the great noisy street
of Alcalá! On re-entering the house I made such a racket that the
servant, a good simple Galician girl, ran breathless to her mistress and
said, “I think the Italian has gone mad!”
I was more amused by the deputies of the Cortes than by either the cocks
or the bulls. I was successful in obtaining a little corner in the
reporters’ gallery, and went there every day, staying until the very end
with infinite pleasure. The Spanish Parliament has a more youthful
appearance than ours—not because the deputies are younger, but because
they are nattier and better dressed. One does not see those dishevelled
heads of hair, those unkempt beards, and colorless surtouts which are to
be seen on the benches of our Chamber: one sees smooth and shiny beards
and hair, embroidered shirts, long black coats, light trousers, tan
gloves, silver-headed canes, and button-hole bouquets. The Spanish
Parliament follows the fashion-plate. And as is the dress, so is the
speech, lively, gay, flowery, and brilliant. We are continually
lamenting that our deputies are more careful of form than is becoming to
political orators, but the Spanish deputies observe this even more
studiously, and, it must be admitted, with even greater grace. Not only
do they speak with marvellous facility, so that one very rarely hears
one of them pause in the middle of a period to find a word, but,
moreover, every one tries to speak correctly and to add to his speech a
certain poetical lustre, a little classical polish, and a slight impress
of the grand oratorical style. The gravest ministers, the most timid
deputies, the sternest financiers, even when they use arguments utterly
foreign to rhetorical treatment, embellish their speeches with verses
from the anthology, with happy anecdotes, and famous quotations, and
apostrophes to culture, liberty, and patriotism; and they talk as
rapidly as though they were reciting something committed to memory, with
an intonation always measured and euphonious, and a variety of pose and
gesture of which one never tires for an instant. And the journals, in
criticising the speeches, praise the elevation of their style, praise
the purity of their language, los rasgos sublimes (the sublime
flashes), which appear admirable if they are writing of their friends,
be it understood, or, on the other hand, they say in disparagement that
the style is slipshod, the language corrupt, the form—that precious
form!—in a word unpolished, base, and unworthy of the splendid
traditions of Spanish oratory.
This cultivation of form, this great facility of speech, degenerates
into vanity and bombast, and it is true that one must not search in the
Parliament of Madrid for examples of genuine political eloquence; but
it is none the less true, as is universally conceded, that this
Parliament, among all those of Europe, is richest in oratory in the
general acceptation of that word. One should hear a discussion on some
important political measure which stirs the passions of the deputies. It
is a veritable battle! There are no longer speeches, but torrents of
words which drive the stenographers mad and confuse the heads of those
in the galleries. There are tones, gestures, violent expressions, bursts
of inspired eloquence, which remind one of the French Assembly in the
turbulent days of the Revolution. There one hears Rios Rosas, a most
violent orator, who rules the tumult with a roar; a Martos, an orator of
distinguished figure, who destroys by ridicule; a Pi y Margall, a
venerable old man, who terrifies by his gloomy predictions; a Colantes,
an indefatigable speaker, who crushes the Chamber under an avalanche of
words; a Rodriguez, who with marvellous flexibility of argument and
illustration pursues, entangles, and strangles his enemies; and, in the
centre of a hundred others, a Castelar, who conquers and enslaves both
friends and enemies by a flood of poetry and harmony. And this Castelar,
famous throughout Europe, is really the most perfect expression of
Spanish eloquence. He carries the cultivation of form almost to
idolatry; his eloquence is music; his argument a slave to his ear; he
says a thing or leaves it unsaid, or says it in one sense rather than
in another, according as it turns or fails to turn a period; there is a
harmony in his mind which he follows and obeys, and to which he
sacrifices everything that can possibly offend; with him a period is a
strophe, and one must hear him to believe that human speech without the
cadence of poetry and the aid of song is able to approach so closely to
the harmony of song and poetry. He is more of an artist than a
politician, and he has not only the genius, but the heart, of an
artist—the heart of a child incapable of anger or resentment. In all
his speeches no one can find a ground of offence; in the Cortes he has
never provoked a serious dispute of a personal nature; he never has
recourse to satire and never uses irony; in his most violent philippics
there is no touch of bitterness; and this is a proof of these
assertions: although he is a Republican, an opponent of all the
ministers, an aggressive journalist, a continual adversary to every one
who exercises any power, and of every one who is not a fanatic on the
subject of liberty, he has never had an enemy. Consequently, his
speeches are enjoyed and are not feared; his words are too beautiful to
terrify; his character too ingenuous for him to exercise a political
influence; he does not know how to fight, to conspire, and to accomplish
his ends through bribery; it is his function only to please and to
shine: his eloquence even at his grandest is tender, his most beautiful
speeches make one weep. To him the Chamber is a theatre. Like an
improvisatore, to have a full and serene inspiration he is obliged to
speak at a given hour, at a predetermined moment, and with a certain
period of time at his disposal. Accordingly, on the day when he wishes
to speak he makes his arrangement with the president of the chamber; the
president so disposes the business that his speech may begin when the
galleries are crowded and all the deputies are in their seats; his
papers announce his speech on the previous evening in order that the
ladies may procure tickets, for he must have popular attention. Before
speaking he is restless and cannot be still for an instant; he enters
the Chamber, goes out, comes back, turns to go out again, hurries along
the corridors, goes to the library to consult a book, rushes into a café
for a glass of water, seems to be stricken with fever: he imagines that
he will not be able to pronounce two words—that he will appear
ridiculous and be hissed: not a single idea of his speech remains clear
in his mind; he has confused and forgotten everything. “How is your
pulse?” his friends ask him with a smile. The solemn moment arrives; he
rises from his seat with bowed head, trembling and pale, like a man
condemned to death, resigned to lose in a single day the glory won in so
many years and with so great labor. At that moment his very enemies pity
his condition. He raises his head, casts a glance around, and says,
“Señores!” He is saved; his courage is renewed; his mind clears, and
his speech takes form again like a forgotten air; the president, the
Cortes, the galleries vanish; he feels only the irresistible flame which
burns within him—the mysterious force which sustains him. It is fine to
hear him say these words. “I no longer see the walls of the Chamber,” he
says; “I see distant lands and people never seen before.” He speaks hour
after hour, and not a deputy leaves the hall, not a person moves in the
galleries, not a voice interrupts, not a motion disturbs him; not even
when he transgresses the rules has the president courage to stop him; he
pictures at his pleasure the image of his republic clothed in white and
crowned with roses, and the monarchists do not rise in protest, for when
so clothed they too find her beautiful. Castelar is the ruler of the
Assembly; he thunders, lightens, sings, roars, and flashes like
fireworks, provokes laughter, calls forth shouts of enthusiasm, ends in
a tremendous tumult of applause, and disappears with head erect. Such is
the famous Castelar, professor of history in the university—a most
fertile writer on politics, art, and religion; a publicist who annually
receives fifty thousand francs from the journals of America; an
academician unanimously elected a member of the Academia
española—pointed out in the streets, hailed with joy by the people,
loved by his enemies, noble, vain, generous, and happy.
While we are on the subject of political eloquence let us glance at
literature.
Imagine a hall in the Academy full of noise and confusion. A crowd of
poets, novelists, and writers of every sort, nearly all of them having a
French air in their expression and manner, although very studious to
conceal it. They are reading and declaiming from their own works, each
one trying to drown the voice of the others, to the end that he may make
himself heard by the people who crowd the galleries, while they, on
their part, put through the time by reading the papers and discussing
politics. Now and then a clear, sonorous voice rises above the tumult,
and then a hundred voices burst forth together from one corner of the
room, crying, “He is a Carlist!” and a flood of hisses drowns the cry;
or, on the other hand, “He is a Republican!” and another flood of hisses
from the other side drowns the clear, sonorous voice. The academicians
crush their papers into balls, throw them at each other, and shout in
each other’s ears,
“Atheist!”—“Jesuit!”—“Innovator!”—“Weathercock!”—“Traitor!”
By listening attentively to those who are reading one may catch
harmonious stanzas, well-turned periods, powerful phrases: the first
effect is agreeable; the prose and poetry are indeed full of fire, life,
flashes of light, and happy comparisons, drawn from everything that one
hears and sees in the sky, the earth, and the sea; and it is all dimly
lighted with the colors of the Orient and richly clothed in Italian
harmonies. But, alas! it is literature only for the eyes and the ears;
it is only music and painting; on rare occasions the Muse drops a gem of
thought in the midst of a shower of flowers, and of this bright shower
there remains only a lingering perfume in the air and the echo of a
dying murmur on the ear.
Meanwhile one hears in the street the shouts of the people, the firing
of guns, and the beating of drums; at every moment some artist deserts
the ranks and goes to wave a banner among the crowd; they separate in
twos and threes and in larger groups and go to swell the crowd of
journalists; the turmoil and the continuous turning of Fortune’s wheel
dissuade the most industrious from lengthy works; it is in vain that
some solitary figure in the crowd cries, “In the name of Cervantes,
stop!” A few strong voices are raised above this clamor, but they are
the voices of men who hold themselves apart, many of whom will soon make
that voyage from which there is no return. There is the voice of
Hartzenbusch, the prince of the drama; the voice of Breton de las
Herreros, the prince of comedy; the voice of Zorilla, the prince of
poetry; there is the Orientalist, Gayangos; the archeologist, Guerra; a
writer of comedies, called Tamayo; a novelist, Fernand Caballero by
name; Amador de los Rios, a critic; Fernandez y Gonzalez, a novelist;
and a host of other able and productive writers. In the midst of these
there still lives the memory of Quintana, the great poet of the
Revolution; of Espronceda, the Byron of Spain; of a Nicasio Gallego, a
Martinez della Rosa, and a duke di Rivas. But the tumult, the disorder,
and the discord burst through like a torrent and engulf everything.
To leave allegory, Spanish literature finds itself in a condition
similar to ours—a group of illustrious writers whose powers are
failing, but who have had two grand sources of inspiration, religion and
love of country, or both in one—men who have left a distinct and
enduring mark in the field of art; and, on the other hand, a body of
young men who are groping their way forward, asking what it is they have
to do, rather than actually doing it, wavering between faith and doubt;
either possessing faith without courage or taught by custom to simulate
it when they have it not; not even certain of their own language, and
vacillating between the academies, which cry, “Purity!” and the people,
who cry, “Truth!”—hesitating between the weight of traditions and the
need of the moment; thrust aside by the thousands who give fame or
spurned by the few who seal it; obliged to think in one way and to write
in another—to conceal their inmost self, to let the present escape so
as not to break with the past, to steer as best they can between
opposing obstacles. Good fortune may be able for a few years to keep
their names afloat amid the torrent of French books which is pouring in
upon the country. Hence arises the discouragement, first to their own
individual effort, and then to the national genius; and from this follow
imitation which sinks into mediocrity, and the abandonment of the
literature of broad scholarship and large hopes for the ease and
profitable scribbling for the newspapers.
Alone among so many ruins stands the theatre. The new dramatic
literature lacks the marvellous invention, the splendid form, and the
pristine impress of the nobility and grandeur of the old, which was the
expression of a people who ruled Europe and the New World. Still less
does it possess the incredible productiveness and the endless variety;
but, in compensation, it possesses a more wholesome influence, a deeper
observation, a finer delicacy, and a greater degree of conformity to the
true scope of the theatre, which is to purify manners and to ennoble the
heart and mind.
In all the forms of literature, moreover, as in the drama, in the
novels, the popular songs, the poems, and histories, there always lives
and rules the sentiment which informs the literature of Spain more
powerfully indeed than any other European literature, from the first
rude lyrics of Berseo to the noble martial hymns of Quintana—the
sentiment of national pride.
And here it is appropriate to speak of the Spanish character. The
national pride of the Spaniards is still so great to-day, after so many
misfortunes and so grave a fall, that the stranger who lives among them
is doubtful whether they are the Spaniards of three centuries ago or the
Spaniards of the nineteenth century. But it is an inoffensive pride, a
pride which runs to harmless rhetoric. They do not depreciate the other
nations which seem to rise higher than themselves. No; they respect,
praise, and admire them, but show a feeling of superiority which draws a
clear inference contradictory to their praise. They are benevolent
toward other nations, with that benevolence which Leopardi justly
remarks is peculiar to men full of self-conceit, who believe that they
are admired by all, and love their avowed admirers because they think
that a duty attendant upon the superiority with which they imagine fate
has blessed them. Surely there has never existed in the world a people
with greater enthusiasm for their history than the Spanish. It is
incredible. The boy who shines your boots, the porter who carries your
valise, the mendicant who begs for alms, raises his head with flashing
eyes at the names of Charles V., Philip II., Hernando Cortez, and Don
John of Austria, as if they are heroes of his own time, and as if he had
witnessed their triumphal entry into the city only the day before. The
people pronounce the word España with an accent like that with which
the Romans of the most glorious times of the Republic would have
pronounced Roma. When they speak of Spain modesty is thrown aside,
even by men of extremely modest nature, without the least indication in
their faces of that exaltation because of which one may sometimes pardon
intemperate speech. They boast in cold blood, from habit, without being
conscious of so doing. In the speeches of Parliament, in the newspaper
articles, in the writings of the Academy, they speak of the Spanish
people without circumlocution as a nation of heroes, the great nation,
the wonder of the world, the glory of the ages. It is a rare thing to
hear any one speak or read a hundred words before an audience without
sooner or later recognizing the burden of the song in Lepanto, the
Discovery of America, or the War of Independence, the mention of which
always elicits a burst of applause.
And it is precisely this tradition of the War of Independence that
constitutes to the Spanish people a powerful inherent force. One who has
never lived in Spain for a long or short period cannot believe that a
war, however fortunate and glorious, could leave to the people so
steadfast a faith in their national valor. Baylen, Victoria, San
Marcial, are throughout Spain even more potent traditions than are
Marengo, Jena, and Austerlitz in France. Even the martial glory of the
armies of Napoleon, seen through the War of Independence, which shrouds
it like a veil, appears to the eyes of the Spanish less splendid than
to any other people in Europe. The idea of a foreign invasion provokes
among the Spaniards a smile of proud disdain; they do not believe it
possible to be conquered in their own country; one should hear the tones
in which they speak of Germany when it is rumored that the emperor
William has determined to uphold the throne of the duke d’Aosta with his
arms. And doubtless if they were obliged to fight a new war of
independence, they would fight, possibly with less fortunate success,
but with a bravery and constancy equal to those which they once so
marvellously displayed. 1808 is the ’93 of Spain; it is a date which
stands out before the eyes of every Spaniard in letters of fire; they
glory in it, from the women and the boys to the babies who are just
learning to lisp; it is the war-cry of the nation.
And they have a similar pride in their writers and artists. The beggar,
instead of saying España, says sometimes the country of Cervantes.
No writer in the world has ever gained such popularity among his own
people as the author of Don Quixote in Spain. I believe that there is
not a peasant or a shepherd from the Pyrenees to the Sierra Nevada, from
the coast of Valencia to the hills of Estremadura, who if asked about
Cervantes will not reply with a smile of complacence, “He is the
immortal author of Don Quixote!” Spain is perhaps the country where
the anniversaries of the great writers are most generally celebrated;
from Juan de Mena to Espronceda, each one has his solemn day, when they
offer at his tomb a tribute of song and flowers. In the squares, the
cafés, the railway-carriages, wherever you are, you hear lines of the
famous poets repeated by all sorts of people; he who has not read them
has heard another read; he who has not heard them read repeats the
quotation as a proverb learned from others; and when any one repeats a
verse, they all prick up their ears. Any one who knows a little Spanish
literature may make a journey in that country with the assurance of
always having something to talk about and something with which to
inspire sympathy wherever and in whatever company he may happen to be.
The national literature is truly national.
The defect of the Spanish which from the first strikes the stranger is
this—that in their estimate of the affairs, the men, and the
achievements of their time and their country they over-estimate their
measure, if one may so speak. They exaggerate everything, they see
everything, as it were, through a lens that magnifies to vast
proportions. For a long time they have had no immediate part in the
common life of Europe, and hence they have lacked opportunity for
comparing themselves with other states and of judging themselves by such
comparison. On this account their civil wars, the wars in America,
Africa, and Cuba, are to them not what the little war of 1860 and ’61
against the Papal army, or even the revolution of 1860, are to us, but
what we regard the great Crimean War and the wars of 1859 and of 1866.
They speak of the combats—which exalt the Spanish armies in those wars,
sanguinary doubtless, but not great—as the French speak of Solferino,
the Prussians of Sadowa, and the Austrians of Custozza. Prim, Serrano,
and O’Donnell are generals who in comparison dwarf the most illustrious
commanders of other countries. I remember the to-do made at Madrid over
the report of the victory gained by General Merriones over four or five
thousand Carlists. The deputies in the lobby of the Cortes exclaimed
emphatically, “Ah! Spanish blood!” Some even said that if an army of
three hundred Spaniards had found itself in the position of the French
in 1870, it would have marched straight to Berlin. Certain it is, that
one cannot doubt the valor of the Spanish, which has been proved on so
many occasions, but one may safely assert that there is a great
difference between disorganized Carlists and Prussians in battle
array—between the soldiers of Europe, to speak more comprehensively,
and the soldiers of Africa—between great pitched battles, where
canister sweeps away its thousands, and the combats of ten thousand
soldiers on either side with great disparity in equipment and
discipline. And as they speak of war, so they speak of everything else;
and this is true not only of the common people, but of the upper
classes as well. They lavish high-sounding praises upon their writers;
they give the title of grande poeta to many whose names are never
heard outside of Spain; adjectives of exalted sublimity and wonder are
current coin given and taken without the least doubt of its value as
legal tender. One may say that Spain regards and judges everything like
an American, rather than a European, people, and that it is separated
from Europe by an ocean instead of the Pyrenees, and joined to America
by an isthmus.
In other points how similar they are to us! To hear the people talk of
politics, one would think one was in Italy: they do not argue, they
express opinions; they do not censure, they condemn; a single argument
is enough for any judgment, and to form an argument an inference alone
is sufficient. As for this minister, he is a rascal; that one, a
traitor; and this one a hypocrite: they are all a pack of thieves. One
has sold the trees in the gardens of Aranguez; another has robbed the
Escurial of its treasures; a third has drained the coffers of the state;
a fourth has sold his soul for a bag of money. They have lost all faith
in the very men who have had a hand in all the political movements of
the last thirty years; even among the lowest people there is creeping in
a spirit of discouragement which gives rise to the expressions that one
hears very often and on every side: “Poor Spain! Unhappy country!
Wretched Spaniards!”
But the violence of the political passions and the fury of the civil
struggles have not changed the foundation of the ancient Spanish
character. Only that part of society known as the political world, only
this is corrupt; the people, though always inclined toward those blind
and at times savage impulses of passion which betray the mingling of the
Arabian and Latin blood, are good and loyal and capable of magnanimous
action and sublime bursts of enthusiasm. “The honor of Spain” is still a
motto which quickens every pulse. And, moreover, their manners are frank
and refined; perhaps less polished, but certainly more amiable and
ingenuous, than those for which the French are praised. Instead of
smiling at you, they offer you a cigar; instead of paying you a
compliment, they press your hand, and are more hospitable in actions
than in protestations. Nevertheless, the forms of address still preserve
their ancient courtliness; the gentleman says to the lady, “I am at your
feet;” the lady to the gentleman, “I kiss your hand.” Among themselves
the gentlemen sign their letters Q. B. S. M.—que besa sus manos (I
kiss your hands), like a servant to his master; only friends say
Adios; and the people preserve their affectionate salutation, Vaya
Usted con Dios! (God be with you!), which is worth more than all the
kissing of the hands.
With the warm, generous nature of this people it is impossible to spend
a month in Madrid without making a hundred friends, even though one does
not seek them. Think how many one might make if one did seek them! This
was my case. I cannot say that they were real friends, but I was
acquainted with so many persons that it did not seem at all like being
in a foreign city. Even the illustrious men are very easy to approach,
and hence there is no need, as elsewhere, of a pile of letters and
messages from friends in order to meet them. I had the honor of knowing
Tamayo, Hartzenbusch, Guerra, Saavedra, Valera, Rodriguez, Castelar, and
many others, some famous in letters and some in the sciences, and I
found them all alike—open, cordial, fiery; men with silvered hair, but
with the eyes and voices of young men of twenty; passionately devoted to
poetry, music, and art; cheerful and animated, with a fresh, ringing
laugh. How many of them did I see, as they read the lines of Quintana or
Espronceda, grow pale, weep, and spring to their feet as though touched
by an electric spark, revealing their whole soul in a radiant glance!
What youthful spirits! What ardent hearts! How delighted I was to see
and hear them—to belong to that same poor Latin race of which we now
say such hard things! and how happy I was in the thought that to a
greater or less degree we are all formed in the same mould, and that,
although we may accustom ourselves, little by little, to envy the
qualities of others, yet we are never wholly successful in obliterating
our own!
After three months and more of sojourning in Madrid I was obliged to
take my departure, in order that I might not be caught by the summer in
Southern Spain. I shall always remember that beautiful May morning when
I left, perhaps for ever, my dear Madrid. I was going to see Andalusia,
“the promised land” of travellers, the ideal Andalusia, whose wonders I
had so often heard sung by poets and romancers in Italy and Spain—that
Andalusia for whose sake, I may say, I had undertaken the journey; and
yet I was sad. I had passed so many happy days in Madrid! I was leaving
so many dear friends! On my way to the station to take the noon train I
passed along the Alcalá, saluted from a distance the gardens of the
Recoletos, passed the Museum of Painting, stopped to take a last look at
the statue of Murillo, and reached the station with an aching heart.
“Three months?” I asked myself a few moments before the train started.
“Have three months passed already? Has it not been a dream? Yes, it
seems as if I have been dreaming. Perhaps I shall never again see my
good landlady, nor Señor Saavedra’s little daughter, nor the sweet,
serene face of Guerra, nor my friends of the Café Fornos, nor any one
else. But what is this? Shall I not return? Return! Oh, no! I know well
that I shall not return. And so ... farewell, my friends! farewell,
Madrid! farewell, my little room in the street of Alduana!” At this
moment my heartstrings seem to be breaking and I must hide my face.
End of Vol. I.
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