So quickly one passes from poetry to prose, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
CHAPTER III.
BLACK COFFEE—AND A CONFESSION.
Continued uproar—H. C. disillusioned—A dark night—Not like another Cæsar—More crowds—A demon scene—Fair time—Glorious days of the past—In marble halls and labyrinthine passages—Our excellent host—His substantial partner—Contented minds—Picturesque court—Songless nightingales—Conscription—H. C.'s modesty—Our host appreciative but personal—Bears the torch of genius—A mistake—Below the salt—Host's fair daughters—Catalonian women—The Silent Enigma—Remarkable priest—Good intentions—Lecture on black coffee—Confessions—Benjamin's portions—A gifted nature.
OUR omnibus rattled off, with the result described. The crowd still cheered; a prolonged and mighty strain. As we went on this grew fainter by degrees, yet did not cease. H. C. collected his thoughts and looked about him. In the dim glimmer of the omnibus lamp we saw shades of doubt and disappointment in his face.
"I begin to think this ovation was not for me after all," he said. "They would hardly go on shouting insanely when we are out of sight and hearing. The people would have accompanied us; taken the horses out of the omnibus; drawn us up to the inn, where I should have arrived like another Cæsar. My volume of Lyrics is worth this recognition if they have rendered all the fire and spirit of its theme, beauty of language, charm of rhythm and rhyme. Above all, my dedication to Lady Maria, a masterpiece of English composition and delicate flattery. I begin to think there must be some other cause for this demonstration. And if it is not a poetical reception, I should call it a disgraceful riot."
He paused for breath. We were now going up-hill, and even the horses found it a tug-of-war. "The people would have had some trouble in dragging you up here," we remarked, as the animals toiled slowly onwards.
"Enthusiasm will carry you through anything," said H. C. "If I assisted at a demonstration I would help to drag a coach up the Matterhorn, and succeed or perish in the attempt. But these people evidently have some other object in view—organising a raid on the train, proclaiming a republic, or something equally barbarous. What a very dark night!"
We looked out. The stars had disappeared. The sky was overcast and threatening. Our horses struggled on and soon entered the town. Crossing the bridge over the river we noticed everywhere an unusual crowd of people, flaring lamps and torches, a sea of upturned faces thrown into lights and shadows that looked weird and demon-like, an undercurrent of voices, a perpetual movement.
What could it all mean? We expected to find Gerona, in spite of its 20,000 inhabitants, almost a dead city, full of traces of the past, oblivious of the present; a city of outlines, echoes and visions of the Middle Ages. We looked down the tree-lined boulevard and felt the very word a desecration of the buried centuries. The broad thoroughfare ran beside the river, and the trees followed each other in quick succession. Without and within their shadows a long double row of booths held sway, whose flaming torches turned night into day, paradise into pandemonium.
A great fair possessed the town, thronged with sightseers of all ages and every stage of emotion. We lamented our fate in visiting Gerona at such a time, but in the end it interfered very little either with our comfort or impressions. It had its own quarters and kept to them.