Spain, v. 2 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

Aquila giovenetta!"

(Oh what a destiny awaits thee, young eagle!) And, save a little bombast in the appellation, it seemed to me that they contained a prophecy, and I imagined meeting the poet in the Piazza Colonna at Rome and running toward him to offer my congratulations and press his hand....

The most beautiful sight in Valencia is the market. The Valencian peasants are the most artistic and bizarre in their dress of all the peasants of Spain. To cut a good figure in a group of maskers at one of our masquerades they need only enter the theatre dressed as they would be on a festival or market-day in the streets of Valencia and along the country roads. On first seeing them dressed in this style, one laughs, and cannot in any way be brought to believe that they are Spanish peasants. They have an indescribable air of Greeks, Bedouins, buffoons, tightrope-walkers, women partly undressed on their way to bed, the silent characters of a play not quite ready to make their appearance, or facetious people who wish to make themselves generally ridiculous. They wear a full white shirt that takes the place of a jacket; a parti-colored velvet waistcoat open at the breast; a pair of zouave linen breeches which do not reach the knee, looking like drawers and standing out like the skirts of a ballet-dancer; a red or blue sash around the waist; a sort of embroidered white woollen stockings that leave the knee bare; a pair of corded sandals like those of the Catalan peasants; and on their heads, which are almost all shaved like those of the Chinese, they wear a handkerchief, red, sky-blue, yellow, or white, bound around like a cornucopia, and knotted at the temples or at the nape of the neck. They sometimes wear small velvet hats similar in shape to those worn in the other provinces of Spain. When they go into the city they nearly all carry around their shoulders or on their arms, now like a shawl, now like a mantle, or again like a little cape, a woollen capa, long and narrow, in brightly-colored stripes in which white and red predominate, adorned with fringe and rosettes. One may easily imagine the appearance presented by a square where there are gathered some hundreds of men dressed after this fashion: it is a Carnival scene, a festival, a tumult of colors, that makes one feel as gay as a band of music; a spectacle at once clownish, pretty, imposing, and ridiculous, to which the haughty faces and the majestic bearing which distinguish the Valencian peasants add an air of gravity which heightens the extraordinary beauty of the scene.

If there is an insolent, lying proverb, it is that old Spanish one which says, "In Valencia flesh is grass, grass is water, men are women, and the women nothing." Leaving that part about the flesh and the grass, which is a pun, the men, especially those of the lower classes, are tall and robust, and have the bold appearance of the Catalans and Arragonese, with a livelier and more luminous expression of the eye; and the women, by the consent of all the Spaniards and of as many foreigners as have travelled in Spain, are the most classically beautiful in the country. The Valencians, who know that the eastern coast of the Peninsula was originally settled by Greeks and Carthaginians, say, "It is a clear case. The Grecian type of beauty has lingered here." I do not venture to say yes or no to this assertion, for to describe the beauty of the women of a city where one has passed only a few hours would seem to me like a license to be taken only by the compiler of a "Guide." But one can easily discover a decided difference between the Andalusian and Valencian types of beauty. The Valencian is taller, more robust, and fairer, with more regular features, gentler eyes, and a more matronly walk and carriage. She does not possess the bewitching air of the Andalusian, which makes it necessary to bite one's finger as if to subdue the sudden and alarming insurrection of one's capricious desires at sight of her; but the Valencian is a woman whom one regards with a feeling of calmer admiration, and while one looks one says, as La Harpe said of the Apollo Belvidere, "Notre tete se releve, notre maintien s'ennoblit," and instead of imagining a little Andalusian house to hide her from the eyes of the world, one longs for a marble palace to receive the ladies and cavaliers who will come to render her homage.

If one is to believe the rest of the Spaniards, the Valencian people are fierce and cruel beyond all imagination. If one wishes to get rid of an enemy, he finds an obliging man who for a few crowns undertakes the business with as much indifference as he would accept a commission to carry a letter to the post. A Valencian peasant who finds that he has a gun in his hands as he passes an unknown man in a lonely street says to his companion, "See if I can aim straight?" and takes aim and fires. This actually occurred not many years ago: I was assured of its truth. In the cities and villages of Spain the boys and young men of the people are accustomed to play at being bulls, as they call it. One takes the place of the bull and does the butting; another, with a sharp stick under his arm like a lance, climbs on the back of a third, who represents the horse, and repulses the assaults of the first. Once a band of young Valencians thought they would introduce some innovations into this sport, and so make it seem a little more realistic and afford the spectators and the participants a little more amusement than the customary way of playing it; and the innovations were to substitute for the stick a long sharp-pointed knife, one of those formidable navajas that we saw at Seville, and to give the man who took the part of the bull two other shorter knives, which, fastened firmly on either side of his head, answered the purpose of horns. It seems incredible, but it is true. They played with the knives, shed a sea of blood, several were killed, some were mortally wounded, and others badly hurt, without the game becoming a fight, without the rules of the sport being transgressed, and without any one raising his voice to end the slaughter.

I tell these things as they were told to me, although I am far from believing all that is said against the Valencians; but it is certain that at Valencia the public safety, if not a myth, as our papers poetically say in speaking of Romagna and Sicily, is certainly not the first of the good things which one enjoys after the blessing of life. I was persuaded of this fact the first evening of my stay in the city. I did not know the way to the port, but thought I was near it, and asked a shop-woman which way I should take. She uttered a cry of astonishment:

"Do you wish to go to the port, caballero?"

"Yes."

"Ave Maria purissima! to the port at this hour?"

And she turned toward a group of women who were standing by the door, and said to them in the Valencian dialect, "Women, do you answer for me: this gentleman is asking me the way to the port!"