Spanish Vistas

by George Parsons Lathrop

The gypsies of Granada are disappointing, apart from their peculiar quivering dance, performed by gitanas in all Spanish cities under the name of flamenco.[10] Their hill-caves, so operative with one's curiosity when regarded from across the valley, gape open in such dingy, sour, degraded foulness on a nearer view, that I found no amount of theory would avail to restore their interest. Yet some of the fortune-telling women are spirited enough, and the inextinguishable Romany spark smoulders in their black eyes. Perhaps it was an interloping drop of Celtic blood that made one of them say to me, "Señorito, listen. I will tell you your fortune. But I speak French—I come from Africa!" And to clinch the matter she added, "You needn't pay me if every word of the prediction isn't true!" Much as I had heard of the Spanish bull, I never knew until then how closely it resembled the Irish breed.

Fortuny's model, Marinero, who lives in a burrow on the Alhambra side, occasionally starts up out of the earth in a superb and expensive costume, due to the dignity of his having been painted by Fortuny. Dark as a negro, with a degree of luminous brown in his skin, and very handsome, he plants himself immovably in one spot to sell photographs of himself. His nostrils visibly dilate with pride, but he makes no other bid for custom. He expands his haughty nose, and you immediately buy a picture. Velveteen chanced upon Marinero's daughter, and got her to pose. When he engaged her she was so delighted that she took a rose from her hair and presented it to him, with a charming, unaffected air of gratitude, came an hour before the time, and waited impatiently. She wore a wine-colored skirt, if I remember, a violet jacket braided with black, and a silk neckerchief of dull purple-pink silk. But that was not enough: a blue silk kerchief also was wound about her waist, and in among her smooth jet locks she had tucked a vivid scarlet flower. The result was perfect, for the rich pale-brown of her complexion could harmonize anything; and in Spain, moreover, combinations of color that appear too harsh elsewhere are paled and softened by the overpowering light.

Episodes like these tinged our dreams of the Alhambra with novel dashes of living reality. Even the tedious bustle of a Spanish town, too, has its attractions. The moving figures on the steep Albaycin streets, that perpetually break into flights of steps; the blocks of pressed snow brought in mule panniers every night from the Sierra to cool sugar-water and risadas of orange at the cafés; peasants coming in to the beautiful old grain market with gaudy mantles over their shoulders, stuffing into their sashes a variety of purchases, and becoming corpulent with a day's transactions; the patient efforts of shop-keepers to water the main street, Zacatin, with a pailful at a time—all this was amusing to watch. The Generalife was another source of pleasure, for in its topmost loggia one may sit like a bird, with the Alhambra spread out below in all the distinctness of a raised map. In the saloons of the Generalife hang the portraits of the Moorish and the Christian ancestors of the present owner. Their direct descendant is a woman; therefore she has married an Italian count, and flitted from this ideal, quite unparalleled eyry, returning to her ancestral home only at rare intervals.

There came an hour when we too flitted. To oblige an eccentric time-table we had to get up at dawn; but the last glimpse of the Alhambra at that early hour was a compensation. The dim red towers already began to soften into a reminiscence under this tender blending of moonlight and morning; but a small constellation in the east sparkled on the blue like a necklace of diamonds, and Saturn still flamed above the mountains, growing momently larger, as if it were a huge topaz in the turban of some giant Moor advancing in the early stillness to reclaim the Alhambra throne.

MEDITERRANEAN PORTS AND GARDENS.

I.

We were conducted, about eleven o'clock in the evening, to a roomy, rambling, dingy apartment in the crook of an obscure and dirty street, where we found a large number of sailors, peasants, and chulos seated drinking at small tables, with a very occasional well-dressed citizen or two here and there. In one corner was a stage rising to the level of our chins when we were seated, which had two fronts, like the Shakspearian stage in pictures, so that spectators on the side might have a fair chance, and be danced to from time to time. On this sat about a dozen men and women, the latter quite as much Spanish as gypsy, and some of them dressed partially in tights, with an affectation of sailors' or pages' costume in addition. At Madrid and Sevilla their sisters in the craft wore ordinary feminine dresses, and looked the possessors of more genuine Romany blood.

But here, too, the star danseuse, the chief mistress of the art flamenco, was habited in the voluminous calico skirt which Peninsular propriety prescribes for this particular exhibition, thereby doing all it can to conceal and detract from the amazing skill of muscular movement involved. A variety of songs and dances with guitar accompaniments, some effective and others tedious, preceded the gypsy performance. I think we listened nearly half an hour to certain disconsolate barytone wailings, which were supposed to interpret the loves, anxieties, and other emotions of a contrabandista, or smuggler, hiding from pursuit in the mountains. Judging from the time at his disposal for this lament, the smuggling business must indeed be sadly on the decline. The whole entertainment was supervised by a man precisely like all the chiefs of these troupes in Spain. Their similarity is astounding; even their features are almost identical: when you have seen one, you have seen all his fellows, and know exactly what they will do. He may be a little older or younger, a little more gross or less so, but he is always clean-shaven like the other two sacred types—the bull-fighter and the priest—and his face is in every case weakly but good-humoredly sensual. But what does he do? Well, nothing. He is the most important personage on the platform, but he does not pretend to contribute to the programme beyond an exclamation of encouragement to the performers at intervals. He is a Turveydrop in deportment at moments, and always a Crummles in self-esteem. A few highly favored individuals as they come into the café salute him, and receive a condescending nod in return. Then some friend in the audience sends up to him a glass of chamomile wine, or comes close and offers it with his own hand. The leader invariably makes excuses, and without exception ends by taking the wine, swallowing a portion, and gracefully spitting out the rest at the side of the platform. He smokes the cigars of admiring acquaintances, and throws the stumps on the stage. All the while he carries in his hand a smooth, plain walking-stick, with which he thumps time to the music when inclined.