At Madrid I saw Titian for the first time; the ones in the Louvre are of no importance. On one side of a narrow gallery in the Prado will be a Titian, and on the other side a Velasquez. The former looks five hundred years old, and the latter very modern, the difference being due, apparently, to the surface of the canvas; also the movement in my day was toward Velasquez—the free brush work and the blond note. There is one marvelous canvas of his here; no one ever did anything like it. He had painted Phillip, the king, dozens of times, and did the dwarfs and ladies of the court. Evidently the queen was tired of these, and said to him one day:
“I want a picture for myself. Do just as I say. Paint my daughter in her new gown, the fool, dog, and parrot, and the king and myself looking at you while you do it.”
A large order, but see what he has done! He stands in the center with his canvas; at one side the infanta, a squat dwarf, and the dog, while the king and queen are seen at the back in a doorway, with the background of a garden. Of great value to us is his palette, which he is holding in his hand, plainly showing what colors he used—red, yellow, black, and white.
Upon arriving at Elche (from the Roman Illici) under whose walls Hamilcar Barca, the uncle of Hannibal, died fighting, I realized I had quietly stepped back four or five hundred years in the history of the world.
One could almost forgive the superstitious and general ignorance of the Mediæval Age when one realizes the beautiful things that have been bequeathed to us. Nothing could be more fascinatingly romantic or more un-Yankee than the Sereno—the man appointed by the city to go about at night announcing the time and the weather. His name, meaning “serene,” comes from the fact that the weather is nearly always clear. In fact, during all the time that I was in Spain there was only one day when I saw a cloud in the sky, and I am afraid I should have missed that if my attention had not been called to it by a proud native.
On these clear blue evenings you would go to bed amid a profound silence and just be dozing off into a half dream, when away down the street would come to your ear two or three weird little notes, faint and far away, seeming to be part of a song or the cry of a bird. Perhaps you would go back to sleep, and again it would seem only five minutes, but in reality it would be a half hour—would come the sound, this time nearer and much more distinct. Each repetition would be louder, until you would hear the “toc, toc, toc,” of his stick, stopping now and then as he banged on the door of some heavy sleeper who had paid the Sereno to wake him. Perhaps he wanted to make a train—or was it “reasons of love”?
Then right under your window would come the song, “Eleven o’clock—Serene,” beginning loud and finally disappearing into the night.
The Spanish nature is a mixture of politeness and cruelty. There is something to excite the blood every day. I have seen them gather together all the stray dogs and give them poison, then heap them up at the corners of the street. Those that are not dead escape and run away howling, and the great sport is to jerk them up on a rope, hurling them high in the air. Everyone thinks this a splendid game and the children yell with glee. But as to the manners—those of an illiterate farmer are better than the average clubman’s of New York. If a Spaniard offers you anything three times, you must accept it, and then offer him something three times so that he may accept. I remember a farmhand hailing an old-fashioned coach which ran from Elche to Alicante. Boarding it slowly, he raised his hat to everyone, saying:
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Will you permit me?” Rolling a cigarette, he was suddenly struck with a thought, and, turning, offered the tobacco to the coach in general. In a café, if you sit down beside anyone—peasant, priest, or dude—he offers you a drink. The third time you are obliged to accept. The same formula is gone through with in every situation in life (like the Arabian who must always walk with a guest to the limit of his property), but I rather think democracy is doing away with it.