Spain, v. 1 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

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.