Spain, v. 2 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

The gardens of the Alcazar are neither very large nor particularly beautiful, but the memories which they recall are of greater value than extent or beauty. In the shade of those orange trees and cypresses, to the murmur of those fountains, when the great white moon was shining in that limpid Andalusian sky, and the many groups of courtiers and slaves rested there, how many long sighs of ardent sultanas! how many lowly words from proud kings! what passionate loves and embraces! "Itimad, my love!" I murmured, thinking of the famous mistress of King Al-Motamid as I wandered from path to path as if following her phantom,—"Itimad," I repeated, "do not leave me alone in this silent paradise! Dost thou remember how thou camest to me? Thy wealth of hair fell over my shoulder, and dearer than the sword to the warrior wert thou to me! How beautiful thou art! Thy neck is soft and white as the swan's, and like berries are thy red, red lips! How marvellous is the perfection of thy beauty! How dear thou art, Itimad, my love! Thy kisses are like wine, and thy eyes, like wine, steal away my reason!"

While I was thus making my declarations of love with phrases and images stolen from the Arabian poets, at the very moment when I turned into a bypath all bordered with flowers, suddenly I felt a stream of water first on one leg and then on the other. I jumped aside, and received a spray in my face; I turned to the right, and felt another stream against my neck; to the left, another jet between my shoulders. I began to run: there was water under me and around me in every direction, in jets, streams, and spray; in a moment I was as wet as if I had been dipped in the bath-tub. Just as I opened my mouth to call for help it all subsided, and I heard a ringing laugh at the end of the garden. I turned and saw a young fellow leaning against a low wall looking at me as if he were saying, "How did you like it?" When I came out he showed me the spring he had touched to play this little joke, and comforted me with the assurance that the sun of Seville would not leave me long in that dripping condition, into which I had passed so rudely, alas! from the lovely arms of my sultana.

That evening, in spite of the voluptuous images which the Alcazar had called to my mind, I was sufficiently calm to contemplate the beauty of the women of Seville without fleeing to the arms of the consul for safety. I do not believe that the women of any other country are so bewitching as the fair Andalusians, not only because they tempt one into all sorts of mischief, but because they seem to have been made to be seized and carried away, so small, graceful, plump, elastic, and soft are they. Their little feet could both be put easily into one's coat-pocket, and with an arm one could lift them by the waist like babies, and by the mere pressure of the finger could bend them like willow wands. To their natural beauty they add the art of walking and looking in a way to turn one's head. They fly along, glide, and walk with a wave-like motion, and in a single moment, as they pass, they show a little foot, make you admire an arm or a slender waist, reveal two rows of the whitest teeth, and dart at you a long veiled glance that melts and dies in your own; and on they go with an air of triumph, certain of having turned your blood topsy-turvy.

To form an idea of the beauty of the women of the people and the picturesqueness of their dress you must go by day to visit the tobacco-manufactory, which is one of the largest establishments of the kind in Europe and employs not less than five thousand hands. The building faces the vast gardens of the duke of Montpensier: almost all of the women work in three immense rooms, each divided into three parts by as many rows of pillars. The first view is astounding: there, all at once, eight hundred girls present themselves before one's eyes in groups of five or six, sitting around work-tables as close as possible, the farthest indistinct and the last scarcely visible; all of them young and a few children—eight hundred jet-black heads and eight hundred brown faces from every province of Andalusia, from Jaen to Cadiz, from Granada to Seville!

One hears a buzzing as of a square full of people. The walls, from one door to the other, in all three of the rooms are lined with skirts, shawls, kerchiefs, and scarfs; and—a very curious thing—that entire mass of garments, which would fill to overflowing a hundred old-clothes shops, presents two predominant colors, in two continuous lines one above the other, like the stripes of a very long flag—the black of the shawls above, and the red mixed with white, purple, and yellow—so that one seems to see an immense costumer's shop or an immense ball-room where the ballet-dancers, in order to be free, have hung on the walls every part of their dress which it is not absolutely necessary to wear. The girls put on these dresses when they go out, and wear old clothes to work in; but white and red predominate in those dresses also. The heat is insupportable, consequently they lighten their clothing as much as possible, and among those five thousand one will scarcely find fifty whose arms and shoulders the visitor may not contemplate at his pleasure, without counting the extraordinary cases which present themselves suddenly as one passes from room to room, behind the doors and columns, and around the distant corners. There are some very beautiful faces, and even those who are not beautiful have something about them which attracts one's glance and lingers in the memory—the complexion, the eyes, the brow, or the smile. Many of them, especially so-called Gitane, are as dark as dark mulattos and have protruding lips; others have eyes so large that a faithful picture of them would be considered a monstrous exaggeration; the greater part are small and well-formed, and all have a rose or carnation or some sort of wild flower in their hair. They are paid in proportion to the work they do, and the most skilful and industrious earn as much as three francs per day; the lazy ones—las holgazanas—sleep with their arms crossed on the table and their heads resting on their arms; mothers are working, and swinging a leg to which is bound a cord that rocks the cradle. From the cigar-room one passes to the cigarette-room, and from it to the box-factory, and from the box-factory to the packing-room, and in them all one sees the red skirts, black hair, and fine eyes. In each of those rooms how many stories of love, jealousy, despair, and misery! On leaving the factory one seems for some time to see black eyes in every direction regarding him with a thousand varying expressions of curiosity, indifference, sympathy, cheerfulness, sadness, and drowsiness.

The same day I went to see the Museum of Painting. The Seville gallery does not contain very many paintings, but those few are worth a great museum. There are the masterpieces of Murillo, and among them his immortal Saint Anthony of Padua, which is said to be the most divinely inspired of his works, and one of the greatest achievements of human genius. I visited the gallery in the company of Señor Gonzalo Segovia and Ardizone, one of the most illustrious young men of Seville, and I wish he were here beside my table at this moment to testify in a foot-note that when my eyes first lit upon the picture I seized his arm and uttered a cry.

Only once in my life have I felt such a profound stirring of my soul as that which I felt on seeing this picture. It was one beautiful summer night: the sky was bright with stars, and the vast plain lay extended before me from the high place where I stood in deep silence. One of the noblest creatures I have ever met in my life was at my side. A few hours before we had been reading some pages from one of Humboldt's works: we looked at the sky and talked of the motion of the earth, the millions of worlds, and the infinite with those suppressed tones as of distant voices which one unconsciously uses in speaking of such things in the silent night. Finally we were still, and each, with eyes fixed on the heavens, gave himself up to fancies. I know not by what train of thought I was led; I know not what mysterious chain of emotions was formed in my heart; I know not what I saw or felt or dreamed. I only know that suddenly a veil before my mind seemed to be rent asunder; I felt within me a perfect assurance of that which hitherto I had longed for rather than believed; my heart expanded with a feeling of supreme joy, angelic peace, and limitless hope; a flood of scalding tears suddenly filled my eyes, and, grasping the hand of my friend, which sought my own, I cried from the depths of my soul, "It is true! It is true!" and began to cry like a child.

The Saint Anthony of Padua brought back the emotions of that evening. The saint is kneeling in the middle of his cell; the child Jesus in a nebulous halo of white vaporous light, drawn by the power of his prayer, is descending into his arms. Saint Anthony, rapt in ecstasy, throws himself forward with all his power of body and soul, his head thrown back, radiant with an expression of supreme joy. So great was the shock which this picture gave me that when I had looked at it a few moments I was as exhausted as if I had visited a vast gallery, and a trembling seized me and continued so long as I remained in that room.

Afterward I saw the other great paintings of Murillo—a Conception, a Saint Francis embracing Christ, another version of Saint Anthony, and others to the number of twenty or more, among them the famous and enchanting Virgin of the Napkin, painted by Murillo upon a real napkin in the Capuchin convent of Seville to gratify a desire of a lay brother who was serving him: it is one of his most delicate creations, in which is revealed all the magic of his inimitable coloring—but none of these paintings, although they are objects of wonder to all the artists of the world, drew my heart or thoughts from that divine Saint Anthony.

There are also in this gallery paintings by the two Herreras, Pacheco, Alonzo Cano, Pablo de Cespedes, Valdes, Mulato, a servant of Murillo who ably imitated his style, and finally the large famous painting of the Apotheosis of Saint Thomas of Aquinas, by Francesco Zurbaran, one of the most eminent artists of the seventeenth century, called the Spanish Caravaggio, and possibly his superior in truth and moral sentiment,—a powerful naturalist, a strong colorist, and an inimitable painter of austere friars, macerated saints, brooding hermits, and terrible priests, and an unsurpassed poet of penitence, solitude, and meditation.