“Why not, caballerito?” The portress opened the door of the Colegio de Santa Cruz, and followed me inside. There are many paintings, but besides some by Rubens, Mascagni, Cardenas, Vincenzo Carduccio, the rest of them are of very slight merit, gathered together from convents here and there, and hung at random in the rooms, along the corridors, staircases, and galleries. None the less, it is a museum which leaves upon the mind a profound impression, not very unlike that produced by one’s first sight of a bull-fight; in fact, it is more than six months since that day, and yet the impression is still as distinct as though it was made only a few hours ago. The gloomiest, the bloodiest, the most horrid work from the brushes of the finest Spanish painters are found there. Imagine gaping wounds, mutilated limbs, heads severed from the trunks, ghastly corpses, bodies that have been bruised, torn asunder, racked with the cruelest tortures you have found described in the romances of Guerrazzi or in the History of the Inquisition, and you will have formed an adequate idea of the gallery of Valladolid. You pass from room to room and see only faces distorted by death, faces of the dying, of demoniacs, of executioners, and on every side blood, blood, blood! until you seem to see blood spurting from the walls and feel as though you were wading in it, like Father Bresciani’s Babette in the prisons of Naples. It is a collection of woes and horrors enough to fill to overflowing all the hospitals in the country.
At first one feels a sense of sadness, then a shudder of abhorrence, and finally far more than abhorrence—indignation against the butcher-artists who have so shamelessly debased the art of Raphael and Murillo.
The most noticeable painting which I saw, among the many bad ones, although it too was a cruel Spanish realism, was a picture representing the circumcision of Jesus, with all the most minute details of the instruments and the operation, and a circle of spectators standing motionless with bowed heads, like the students of a surgical clinic around their chief.
“Let us go! let us go!” I said to the courteous portress; “if I stay here half an hour longer I shall be burned, flayed, or quartered. Have you nothing more cheerful to show me?”
She took me to see Rubens’ “Assumption,” a grand, effective painting which would look well above a great altar—a majestic, radiant Virgin, ascending to heaven, and around her, above and below, a host of angelic faces, wreaths of flowers, golden hair, white wings, waving pinions, and dancing sunbeams. It is all tremulous, and pierces the air and soars upward like a flock of doves, so that it seems from moment to moment that the whole scene ought to rise and disappear.
But it was not ordered that I should leave the museum with a pleasant picture before my eyes. The portress opened a door and with a laugh bade me enter. I entered, and turned back in fright. It seemed to me that I had fallen upon a madhouse of giants. The vast room was full of colossal statues of painted wood which represented the drama of the Passion—soldiers, jailers, and spectators, each in the attitude befitting his office, some in the act of scourging, others binding the criminals, others smiting, and wagging their heads—horrid faces horribly distorted, a few kneeling women, Jesus nailed to an enormous cross, the thieves, the ladder, the instruments of torture,—in short, everything one could think of to represent the Passion as it was once portrayed in the square, with a group of these huge statues which must have required as much room as a house. And here too were wounds, heads dripping with blood, and gashes enough to sicken you.
“See that Judas there?” said the woman as she pointed out one of the statues—a gallows face which I shall dream of sometimes. “When they arranged the groups outside, they had to take it down, it was so ugly and sad. The people hated it like death, and wanted to break it to pieces, and as there was always such a great to-do to guard it and to keep their threats from becoming deeds, it was decided to form the groups without it.” The most beautiful statue, to my eyes, was a Madonna, the work of Berruguete, Juan de Juni, or Hernandez—I do not know which, for they all three have statues there. She was kneeling with her hands clasped, and her eyes turned toward heaven with an expression of such passionate sorrow that one is moved to pity as though the statue were a living person; and, in fact, a few steps distant it seems to be alive, so that on seeing it suddenly one cannot check an exclamation of surprise.
“The English,” said the portress (for the cicerones repeat the opinions of the English as a confirmation of their own, and sometimes attribute to them the most tiresome extravagances),—“the English say that only words are lacking.”
I joyfully assented to the opinion of the English, gave the portress the customary reales, and, taking my departure with a head full of sanguinary images, hailed the cheerful sky with an unwonted feeling of pleasure, like a young student leaving the dissecting-room where he has been assisting at his first autopsy.
I visited the beautiful palace of the University, La Plaza Campo Grande, where the Holy Inquisition kindled its fagots—a wide, cheerful square, surrounded by fifteen convents. I went to see a church adorned with famous paintings, and then my brain began to confuse the images of the things I had seen. I slipped the guide-book into my pocket and took my way toward the great square. I did the same thing in all the other cities, for when the mind becomes tired it may be a good sign of constancy to force one’s attention in deference to that mistaken idea of following the guide-book, but it is a dangerous practice for one who is travelling with the intention of afterward telling the impressions of what he had seen. For one cannot remember everything, and it is better not to confuse the vivid remembrances of the principal objects with a crowd of vague recollections of things of less account. Moreover, one never has pleasant recollections of a city where he has used his head for a storehouse.