When the procession was about to return, we were amazed, in gazing at the small street from which it should emerge, to behold eight huge figures, looking half as high as the houses, in long robes, and with placidly unreal expressions on their gigantic faces, advancing with that peculiar unconscious gait due to human leg-power when concealed under papier-maché monsters. It took but a glance, as they filed out and aligned themselves on the small sunny square, to recognize in them the Kings of the Earth, come in person to do homage before the Christ. One bore a crown and ermine as insignia of the Castilian line; others were Moors; and even China was represented. After them danced a dozen boys, in pink tunics and bell-crowned hats of drab felt quaintly beribboned, throwing themselves about fantastically, with snapping fingers and castanets. They formed in two ranks, just under the grand shadowy entrance arch, to receive the pageant. A drummer and two flautistas in festive attire accompanied them; and whenever a monstrance or holy image was borne past, the flutes mingled with the drum eccentric bagpipe discords, at which the boys broke into a prancing jig and rattled their castanets to express their devout joy. Two other men in harlequin dress, wearing tall, pointed hats, stood on the edge of the eager crowd, and belabored those who pressed too close with horse-hair switches attached by a long cord to slender sticks. This part of the performance was conducted with great energy and seriousness, and seemed to be received with due reverence by the thick heads which got hit. A more heathenish rite than this jig at the sanctuary gate could hardly be imagined.
"Are these things possible, and is this the nineteenth century?" exclaimed my friend and companion, who, however, had been guilty of an indigestion that day.
I confess that for myself I enjoyed the dance, and could not help being struck by the contrast of this boyish gayety with the heavy gorgeousness of the priests and the immobile frown of the sculptured figures on the massive ogee arch.[1] Then when the Host was carried by in the custodia, and the motley crowd kneeled and bared their heads, we sunk to the pavement with them, our knees being assisted possibly by the statement we had heard that, a few years since, blows or knives were the prompt reward of non-conformity. Afterward, when secular amusements ensued, our boys went about, stopping now and then in open places to execute strange dances, with hoops and ribbons and wooden swords, for the general enjoyment. A gleeful sight they made against backgrounds of old archways, or perhaps the mighty Arch of Santa Maria, one of the local glories, peopled with statues of ancient counts and knights and rulers.
No Spanish town is without its paseo—its public promenade; and in Burgos this is supplied by The Spur—a broad esplanade skirting the shrunken river, with borders of chubby shade trees and shrubbery. On Corpus Christi the citizens also turned out in the arcades of the Main Plaza. Here, and later in the dusty dusk of The Spur, they crowded and chatted, in accordance with native ideas of enjoyment; and except that their mantillas and shoulder-veils[2] made a difference, the señoras and señoritas might have passed for Americans, so delicate were their features, so trim their daintily-attired figures, though perhaps they hadn't a coin in their pockets. The men had the universal Iberian habit of carrying their light overcoats folded over the left shoulder; but their quick nervous expression and spare faces would have been quite in place on Wall Street. Spanish ladies are allowed far more liberty than the French or English in public; but though they walked without male escort, they showed remarkable skill in avoiding any direct look at men from their own lustrous eyes. During the accredited hours of the paseo, however, gallants and friends are suffered to walk close behind them—so close that the entire procession often comes to a stand-still—and to whisper complimentary speeches into their ears; no one, not even relatives of the damsels, resenting this freedom.
At Las Huelgas, a famous convent near the town, much resorted to by nuns of aristocratic family (even the Empress Eugénie it was thought would retire thither after her son's death), the fête was renewed next day; and it was here that we saw beggars in perfection. A huge stork's nest was perched high on one end of the chapel, as on many churches of Spain. Bombs were fired above the crowd from the high square tower that rose into the hot air not far from the inner shrine; and in the chapel below the nuns were at their devotions, caged behind heavy iron lattices that barely disclosed their picturesque head-dress. Meanwhile peasants and burghers wandered aimlessly about, looking at pictures, relics, and inscriptions in an outer arcade; after which the holiday of the people began. Holiday here means either walking or sleeping. In a sultry, dusty little square by the convent, covered with trees, the people went to sleep, or sat talking, and occasionally eating or drinking with much frugality. The first object that had greeted us by daylight in Burgos was a marvellous mendicant clad in an immense cloak, one mass of patches—in fact, a monument of indigence—carrying on his head a mangy fur cap, with a wallet at his waist to contain alms. The beggars assembled at Las Huelgas were quite as bad, except that they mostly had the good taste to remain asleep. In any attitude, face down or up, on stone benches or on the grass, they dozed at a moment's notice, reposing piously. One sat for a long time torpid near us, but finally mustered energy to come and entreat us. He received a copper, whereupon he kissed the coin, murmured a blessing, and again retreated to his shadow. Another, having acquired something from some other source, halted near us to find his pocket. He searched long among his rags, and plunged fiercely into a big cavity which exposed his dirty linen; but this proved to be only a tear in his trousers, and he was at last obliged to tie his treasure to a voluminous string around his waist, letting it hang down thence into some interior vacancy of rags.
It may not be generally known that beggars are licensed in Spain. Veteran soldiers, instead of receiving a pension, are generously endowed with official permission to seek charity; the Church gives doles to the poor, and citizens consider it a virtue to relieve the miserable objects who petition for pence at every turn. As we came from Las Huelgas we saw the maimed and blind and certain more robust paupers creeping up to the door of a church, where priests were giving out food. A little farther on an emaciated crone at a bridge-head, with eyes shut fast in sleep, lifted her hand mechanically and repeated her formula. We were convinced that, since she could do this in her slumbers, she must have been satisfied with merely dreaming of that charity we did not bestow.
It was a favorable season for the beggars, and many of them sunned their bodies, warped and scarred by hereditary disease, on the cathedral steps. But professional enterprise with them was constantly hindered by the tendency to nap. One old fellow I saw who, feeling a brotherhood between himself and the broken-nosed statues, had mounted into a beautiful niche there and coiled himself in sleep, first hauling his wooden leg up after him like a drawbridge.
Meanwhile the peasants kept on swarming into the town, decorating it with their blue and red and yellow kerchiefs and kirtles, as with a mass of small moving banners. The men wore vivid sashes, leather leggings, and laced sandals. It was partly for enjoyment they came, and partly to sell produce. All alike were to be met with at noon, squatting down in any sheltered coigne of street or square, every group with a bowl in its midst containing the common dinner. There were also little eating-houses, in which they regaled themselves on bread and sardines, with a special cupful of oil thrown in, or on salt meat. A lively trade in various small articles was carried on in the Main Plaza; among them loaves of tasteless white bread, hard as tiles, and delicious cherries, recalling the farms of New York. Another product was offered, the presence of which in large quantity was like a sarcasm. This was Castile soap. It must have taken an immense effort of imagination on the part of these people to think of manufacturing an article for which they have so little use. I am bound to add that I did not see an ounce of it sold; and I have my suspicions that the business is merely a traditional one—the same big cheese-like chunks being probably brought out at every fair and fête, as a time-honored symbol of Castilian prosperity. But, after all, so devout a community must be convinced that it possesses godliness; and having that, what do they need of the proximate virtue? This is the region where the inhabitants refer to themselves as "old and rancid Castilians;" and the expression is appropriate.
