Spain, v. 2 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

"For what reason?"

"The reason is this," he answered, pointing to a wall on which hung a map of Toledo. I approached and saw a network of white lines on a black background that seemed like one of those flourishes which school-boys make on their slates to waste the chalk and vex their teacher.

"No matter," said I; "I am going alone, and if I get lost, let them come and find me."

"You will not go a hundred steps," observed the porter.

I went out and turned down the first street I saw, so narrow that on extending my arms I touched both walls. After fifty paces I turned into another street, narrower than the first, and from this passed into a third, and so on.

I seemed to be wandering not through the streets of the city, but through the corridors of a building, and I went forward, expecting momentarily to come out into an open place. It is impossible, I thought, that the whole city is built in this manner; no one could live in it. But as I proceeded the streets seemed to grow narrower and shorter; every moment I was obliged to turn; after a curving street came a zigzag one, and after this another in the form of a hook, which led me back into the first, and so I wandered on for a little while, always in the midst of the same houses. Now and then I came out at a crossway where several alleys ran off in opposite directions, one of which would lose itself in the dark shadow of a portico, another would end blindly in a few paces against the wall of a house, a third in a short distance would descend, as it were, into the bowels of the earth, while a fourth would clamber up a steep hill; some were hardly wide enough to give a man passage; others were confined between two walls without doors or windows; and all were flanked by buildings of great height, between whose roofs one could see a narrow streak of sky.

One passed windows defended by heavy iron bars, great doors studded with enormous nails, and dark courtyards. I walked for some time without meeting anybody, until I came out into one of the principal streets, lined with shops and full of peasants, women, and children, but little larger than an ordinary corridor. Everything is in proportion to the streets: the doors are like windows, the shops like niches, and by glancing into them one sees all the secrets of the house—the table already spread, the babies in the cradle, the mother combing her hair, and the father changing his shirt; everything is on the street, and it does not seem like a city, but like a house containing a single great family.

I turned into a less-frequented street, where I heard only the buzzing of a fly; my footsteps echoed to the fourth story of the houses and brought some old women to the windows. A horse passes; it seems like a squadron; everybody hurries to see what is going on. The least sound re-echoes in every direction; a book falls in a second story, an old man coughs in a courtyard, a woman blows her nose in some unknown place; one hears everything.

Sometimes every sound will suddenly cease; you are alone, you see no sign of life: you seem to be surrounded by the houses of witches, crossways made for conspirators, blind alleys for traitors, narrow doorways suitable for any crime, windows for the whispers of guilty lovers, gloomy doorways suggestive of blood-stained steps. But yet in all this labyrinth of streets there are no two alike; each one has its individuality: here rises an arch, there a column, yonder a piece of statuary. Toledo is a storehouse of art-treasures. Every little while the walls crumble, and there are revealed in every part records of all the centuries—bas-reliefs, arabesques, Moorish windows, and statuettes. The palaces have doorways defended by plates of engraved metal, historical knockers, nails with carved heads, 'scutcheons and emblems; and they form a fine contrast to the modern houses painted with festoons, medallions, cupids, urns, and fantastic animals.

But these embellishments detract in no way from the severe and gloomy aspect of Toledo. Wherever you look you see something to remind you of the city fortified by the Arabs; however little your imagination may exert itself, it will succeed in rearranging from the relics scattered here and there the whole fabric of that darkened image, and then the illusion is complete: you see again the glorious Toledo of the Middle Ages, and forget the solitude and silence of its streets. But it is a fleeting illusion, and you soon relapse into sad meditation and see only the skeleton of the ancient city, the necropolis of three empires, the great sepulchre of the glory of three races. Toledo reminds you of the dreams which come to young men after reading the romantic legends of the Middle Ages. You have seen many a time in your dreams dark cities encircled by deep moats, frowning walls, and inaccessible rocks; and you have crossed those draw-bridges and entered those tortuous, grass-grown streets, and have breathed that damp, sepulchral, prison air. Well, then, you have dreamed of Toledo.