Glories of Spain

by Charles W. Wood

Plunging boldly into the crowd, we were swallowed up in the vortex. It was rather bewildering. All the people seemed to do was to walk up and down in an endless stream, eat chestnuts and blow penny trumpets. To-night, at any rate, the stalls were almost neglected. Possibly they had not had time to digest the glamour, and to-morrow the harvest would come.

At the end of the long thoroughfare lights and stalls and crowd were left behind. We reached a quaint corner which cunningly led to another bridge. This we crossed and soon found ourselves in the wide market square and a different scene. Here the shows had taken up their abode, and every effort was being made to excite an unresponsive crowd. It was the usual thing. The learned pig, the two-headed lady, the gentleman who drew portraits with his feet, the clairvoyante who told fortunes and promised wealth and marriage, the lion-tamer who put his head into the lion's mouth, the enchanting ballet, where ladies and gentlemen pirouetted and made love in dumb motions: these attractions were faithfully described and freely offered to the dazzled multitude. In vain a clown tried to be facetious, shouted himself hoarse, and blew a trumpet until his face grew dark. Bells rang and drums beat—the crowd did not respond.

We left them to it, not tempted by the unseen. Our day for shows and illusions was over. This was not what we had expected of Gerona the beautiful and ancient. If we felt a slight grievance, who could wonder?

Presently we found ourselves in the darkness of night at the edge of the river. There was more water here, no dry bed visible. Away to the left, as far as one could gather, stretched the open country. Tall trees, sombre and mysterious, waved and rustled behind us. Evidently this was one of the public parks or promenades that exist just outside so many Spanish towns, refuges from the mid-day sun and evening glare; Elysian fields for those disembodied souls who pace to and fro to the music of love's young dream; vows of eternal fidelity more or less writ in sand.

The water looked cold and calm and tranquil. Rushes grew by the side and the wind whispered through them. Pan was playing his pipes. Lights twinkled from the windows of many a house down by the river. A lurid glow still hung in the sky, and beneath it, in front of us to the right, we traced the marvellous outlines of the town. Above all, crowning the heights, stretching heavenwards like mighty monsters, uprose the towers of the cathedral and other churches. Almost unearthly was the scene in its gloom and grandeur of mystery. Far down on the dry bed of the river the chestnut-roasters danced like demons about their holocausts. No clown need cry the virtues of their wares; the demand was equal to the supply, and both were unlimited.

We hardly knew how we found our way here or found it back again. Instinct guides one on these occasions and seldom fails as it failed in the midnight streets of Toledo. But a conjuror would be lost in those narrow wynds, which all resemble each other and are without plan or sequence.

To-night it was plainer sailing. Afar off we heard the clown bidding people to his feast of good things. Like the siren in stormy weather it told us which way to steer, what to avoid. We passed well on the outskirts of the gaping crowd and found ourselves on the bridge: the dark bridge, with the river flowing beneath, the houses rising in a great impenetrable mass, and the distant chestnut-roasters at their demon work.

The evening was growing old; a neighbouring church clock struck ten. This served to change the current of one's thoughts, which had simply drifted with the scene before us.

"Let us go to the cathedral," said H. C. "We shall then have two impressions instead of one. I always like to see an important building first at night. Next morning's view is so different that it becomes a revelation."