Spain, v. 2 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

Then I besought Señor Gonzalo to show me a patio, one of those enchanting patios which as I looked at them from the street made me imagine so many delightful things. "I want to see at least one," I said to him—"to penetrate once into the midst of those mysteries, to touch the walls, to assure myself that it is a real thing and not a vision."

My desire was at once fulfilled: we entered the patio of one of his friends. Señor Gonzalo told the servant the object of our visit, and we were left alone. The house was only two stories in height. The patio was no larger than an ordinary room, but all marble and flowers, and a little fountain in the middle, and paintings and statues around, and from roof to roof an awning which sheltered it from the sun. In a corner was a work-table, and here and there one saw low chairs and little benches whereon a few moments previously had doubtless rested the feet of some fair Andalusian, who at that moment was watching us from between the slats of a blind. I examined everything minutely, as I would have done in a house abandoned by the fairies: I sat down, closed my eyes, imagined I was the master, then arose, wet my hand with the spray of the fountain, touched a slender column, went to the door, picked a flower, raised my eyes to the windows, laughed, sighed, and said, "How happy must those be who live here!" At that moment I heard a low laugh, and saw two great black eyes flash behind a blind and instantly disappear. "Truly," I said, "I did not believe that it was possible to still live so poetically upon this earth. And to think that you enjoy these houses all your life! and that you have the inclination to rack your brains about politics!"

Señor Gonzalo showed me the secrets of the house. "All this furniture," said he, "these paintings, and these vases of flowers disappear on the approach of autumn and are taken to the second story, which is the living apartment from autumn to spring. When summer comes beds, wardrobes, tables, chairs—everything is brought down to the rooms on the ground floor, and here the family sleep and eat, receive their friends, and do their work, among the flowers and marbles to the murmur of the fountain. And at night they have the doors open, and from the sleeping-rooms one can see the patio flooded with moonlight and smell the fragrance of roses."

"Oh, stop!" I exclaimed, "stop, Señor Gonzalo! Have pity on strangers!" And, laughing heartily, we both went out on our way to see the famous Casa de Pilato.

As we were passing along a lonely little street I looked in a window of a hardware-shop and saw an assortment of knives so long, broad, and unusual that I felt a desire to buy one. I entered: twenty were displayed before my eyes, and I had the salesman to open them one by one. As each knife was opened I took a step backward. I do not believe it is possible to imagine an instrument more barbarous and terrifying in appearance than one of them. The handles are of wood, copper, and horn, curved and carved in open patterns, so that one may see through their little pieces of isinglass. The knives open with a sound like a rattle, and out comes a large blade as broad as the palm of your hand, as long as both palms together, and as sharp as a dagger, in the form of a fish, ornamented with red inlaying, which suggests streaks of clotted blood, and adorned with fierce and threatening inscriptions. On the blade of one there will be written in Spanish, Do not open me without reason, nor shut me without honor; on another, Where I strike, all is over; on a third, When this snake bites, there is nothing left for the doctor to do; and other gallantries of the same sort. The proper name of these knives is navaja—a word which also has the meaning of razor—and the navaja is the popular duelling weapon. Now it has fallen into disuse, but was at one time held in great honor; there were masters who taught its use, each of whom had his secret blow, and duels were fought in accordance with the rules of chivalry. I bought the most terrible navaja in the shop, and we entered the street again.

The Casa de Pilato, held by the Medina-Coeli family, is, after the Alcazar, the most beautiful monument of Moorish architecture in Seville. The name, Casa de Pilato, comes from the fact that its founder, Don Enriquez de Ribera, the first marquis of Tarifa, had it built, as the story goes, in imitation of the house of the Roman prætor, which he had seen in Jerusalem, where he went on a pilgrimage. The edifice has a modest exterior, but the interior is marvellous. One first enters a court not less beautiful than the enchanting court of the Alcazar, encircled by two orders of arches, supported by graceful marble columns, forming two very light galleries, one above the other, and so delicate that it seems as if the first puff of wind would cast them into ruins. In the centre is a lovely fountain resting on four marble dolphins and crowned by a bust of Janus. Around the lower part of the walls run brilliant mosaics, and above these every sort of fantastic arabesque, here and there framing beautiful niches containing busts of the Roman emperors. At the four corners of the court the ceilings, the walls, and the doors are carved, embroidered, and covered with flowers and historic tapestries with the delicacy of a miniature. In an old chapel, partly Moorish and partly Gothic in style, and most delicate in form, there is preserved a little column, scarcely more than three feet in height, the gift of Pius V. to a descendant of the founder of the palace, at one time viceroy of Naples: to that column, says the tradition, was bound Jesus of Nazareth to be scourged. This fact, even if it were true, would prove that Pius V. did not believe it in the slightest degree. For he would not lightly have committed the unpardonable mistake of depriving himself of a valuable relic to make a present to the first comer. The entire palace is full of sacred memories. On the first floor the custodian points out a window which corresponds to that by which Peter sat when he denied his Lord, and the little window from which the maid-servant recognized him. From the street one sees another window with a little stone balcony, which represents the exact position of the window where Jesus, wearing the crown of thorns, was shown to the people.

The garden is full of fragments of ancient statuary brought from Italy by that same Don Pedro Afan de Ribera, viceroy of Naples. Among the other fables that are told about this mysterious garden is one to the effect that Don Pedro Afan de Ribera placed in it an urn brought from Italy containing the ashes of the emperor Trajan, and a curious person carelessly struck the urn and overturned it; the emperor's ashes were thus scattered over the grass, and no one has ever succeeded in collecting them. So this august monarch, born at Italica, by a very strange fate has returned to the vicinity of his natal city, not in the very best condition in which to meditate upon its ruins, to tell the truth, but he was near it, at any rate.

In spite of all that I have described, I may say that I did not see Seville, but just commenced to see it. Nevertheless, I shall stop here, because everything must have an end. I pass by the promenaders, the squares, the gates, the libraries, the public buildings, the mansions of the grandees, the gardens and the churches; but allow me to say that, after several days' wandering through Seville from sunrise to sunset, I was obliged to leave the city under the weight of a self-accusing conscience. I did not know which way to turn. I had reached such a condition of weariness that the announcement of a new object to be seen filled me with foreboding rather than pleasure. The good Señor Gonzalo kept up my courage, comforted me, and shortened the journeys with his delightful company, but, nevertheless, I have only a very confused remembrance of all that I saw during those last days.

Seville, although it no longer merits the glorious title of the Spanish Athens, as in the times of Charles V. and Philip II., when it was mother and patron of a large and chosen band of poets and artists, the seat of culture and of the arts in the vast empire of its monarchs, is even yet that one among the cities of Spain, with the exception of Madrid, in which the artistic life is most vigorously maintained, as is evidenced by the number of its men of genius, the liberality of its patrons, and the popular love of the fine arts. It contains a flourishing academy of literature, a society for the protection of the arts, a well-known university, and a colony of scholars and sculptors who enjoy an honorable distinction throughout Spain. But the highest literary fame in Seville belongs to a woman—Catharine Bohl, the author of the novels which bear the name of Fernan Caballero, widely read in Spain and America, translated into almost all the languages of Europe, and known also in Italy (where some of them were published not long since) by every one who at all occupies himself with foreign literature. They are admirable pictures of Andalusian manners, full of truth, passion, and grace, and, above all, possessing a vigor of faith and a religious enthusiasm so fearless and a Christian charity so broad that they would startle and confuse the most skeptical man in the world. Catharine Bohl is a woman who would undergo martyrdom with the firmness and serenity of a Saint Ignatius. The consciousness of her power is revealed in every page: she does not hesitate to defend her religion, and confronts, assails, threatens, and overthrows its enemies; and not only the enemies of religion, but every man and everything that, to use a common expression, conforms to the spirit of the age, for she never forgives the least sin which has been committed from the times of the Inquisition to our own day, and she is more inexorable than the Pope's syllabus. And herein perhaps lies her greatest defect as a writer—that her religious convictions and her invectives are entirely too frequent and grow tiresome, and disgust and prejudice the reader rather than convince him of her own beliefs. But there is not a shadow of bitterness in her heart, and as her books, so is her life, noble, upright, and charitable. In Seville she is revered as a saint. Born in that city, she married early in life, and is now a widow for the third time. Her last husband, who was Spanish ambassador at London, committed suicide, and from that day she has never laid aside her mourning. At the time of my visit she was almost seventy; she had been very beautiful, and her noble, placid face still preserved the impress of beauty. Her father, who was a man of considerable genius and great culture, taught her several languages in early life: she knows Latin thoroughly and speaks Italian, German, and French with admirable facility. At this time, however, she is not writing at all, although the editors and publishers of Europe and America are offering her large sums for her works. But she does not live a life of inactivity. From morning to night she reads all sorts of books, and while she reads she is either knitting or embroidering, for she very firmly believes that her literary studies ought not to take one minute from her feminine employments. She has no children, and lives in a lonely house, the best part of which has been given to a poor family; she spends a great part of her income in charity. A curious trait of her character is her great love of animals: she has her house full of birds, cats, and dogs, and her sensibilities are so delicate that she has never consented to enter a carriage, for fear of seeing the horse beaten on her account. All suffering affects her as if she herself were bearing it: the sight of a blind man or of a sick person or of a cripple of any sort distresses her for an entire day; she cannot close her eyes to sleep unless she has wiped away a tear; she would joyfully forego all her honors to save any unknown person a heartache. Before the Revolution her life was not so isolated: the Montpensier family received her with great honor, and the most illustrious families of Seville vied with each other in entertaining her at their homes: now she lives only among her books and a few friends.

In Moorish times Cordova took the lead in literature and Seville in music. "When a scholar dies at Seville," said Averroes, "and they wish to sell his books, they send them to Cordova; but if a musician dies at Cordova, they send his instruments to Seville to be sold." Now Cordova has lost her literary primacy, and Seville holds first place both in literature and music. Truly the times are past in which a poet by singing of the beauty of a maiden draws around her a crowd of lovers from all parts of the realm, and when one prince envies another simply because a poet has sung in his praise a verse more beautiful than any which the other had inspired, and a caliph rewards the author of a noble hymn by a gift of a hundred camels, a troop of slaves, and a vase of gold—when a happy strophe improvised at an opportune time releases a slave from his chains or saves the life of one condemned to death, and when the musicians are followed through the streets of Seville by a train of monarchs, and the favor of poets is more sought than that of kings, and the lyre is more terrible than the sword. But the people of Seville are always the most poetic people of Spain. The bon mot, the word of love, the expression of joy and enthusiasm, fly from their lips with a fascinating spontaneity and grace. The common people of Seville improvise, and talk as though they are singing, gesticulate as if they are declaiming, laugh and play like children. One never grows old at Seville. It is a city where life melts away in a continuous smile, with no other thought than the enjoyment of the beautiful sky, the lovely little houses, and the delightful little gardens. It is the most peaceful city in Spain, and the only one which since the Revolution has not been agitated by those sad political commotions which have stirred the others: politics do not penetrate the surface; the Sevillians are content to make love; all else they take in jest. Todo lo toman de broma, say the other Spaniards of the Sevillians; and in truth with that fragrant air, with those little streets like those of an Oriental city, with those fiery little women, why should they trouble themselves? At Madrid they speak ill of them; they say they are vain, false, fickle, and silly. It is jealousy: they envy them their happy indolence, the sympathy which they inspire in strangers, their girls, their poets, their painters, their orators, their Giralda, their Alcazar, their Guadalquivir, their life, and their history. So say the Sevillians, striking their breasts with one hand and puffing into the air a cloud of smoke from the inseparable cigaritto; and their lovely little women revenge themselves upon their envious sisters and all the other women in the world, speaking with spiteful pity of long feet, large waists, and dull eyes, that in Andalusia would not receive the honor of a glance or the homage of a sigh. A charming and amiable people, in truth; but, alas! one must look at the reverse side of the medal: superstition reigns and schools are lacking, as is the case throughout all Southern Spain; this is partly their own fault and partly not; but the negative is probably the smaller part.