Four Months Afoot in Spain

by Harry Alverson Franck

The room was filled with a hundred bronze-tinted miners over wine and cards. Don José was the industrial autocrat of every man present, yet one would have fancied him rather a brother or cousin, so free was the intercourse from haughtiness on the one hand and servility on the other. Miner and manager addressed each other by their given names, shouted at each other in friendly dispute, thumped each other fraternally on the back. Despite all which one felt absolute assurance that when labor again caught up its pick the manager's word would command instant obedience.

The landlord, flushed with the exertion of their concoction, soon set the incomparable beverages before us. With the alacrity of a man who will have no shadow of debt hanging over his head, Don José thrust a hand into a pocket of his alpaca and cast on the table three mammoth coppers, the combined value of which was close upon five cents. With the first sip he rolled a cigarette and pushed pouch and papers toward me. Then having introduced me as "Señor Newyorkano," he plunged headlong into the story of my life, addressing not merely the assembled miners but whomever else may have been prowling within gunshot of the building. "And to think, amigos," he concluded, "after crossing all the sea el señor should have wandered into San Pablo looking for a posada!"

The company beat their hands on the tables and howled with merriment. Whatever the uproarious humor of that climax to my adventures, it lost nothing of its poignancy as long as the evening lasted, and served to top off a score of otherwise pointless tales.

My ignorance of the Andalusian game notwithstanding, I had soon taken a hand. The alcalde, consuming uncounted cigarettes, beamed over my shoulder shouting praise of my sagacity each time I cast on the table the card he pointed out. As for "ponche," what the peerless libation lacked in favor with the masses it gained in the unswerving fidelity of its sponsor. With clock-like regularity his reverberating voice rang out above the din of revelry: "Don Gregario, un ponche!" In vain did I announce my thirst permanently abated, in vain did I "say the word" or strive at least to take advantage of the free choice offered me. My protest was invariably drowned in the roar of the amended order: "Sí, sí! Dos ponches, Don Gregario!"

Evening rolled into night, night into morning, and still the clank of copper coins continued. Once I attempted to forestall the diving into that fathomless alpaca by thrusting a hand into my own pocket. My unquenchable host started to his feet with a bellow that seemed to set the very walls vibrating:

"Strangers, señor, cannot spend money in San Pablo! We are a private town!"

The minute hand was nearing the completion of its third lap when a general uprising, subtly instigated by the landlord, swept the carousers into the coal-black night. "My house" was no such regal mansion as befitted an industrial sovereign, an alcalde, and a man of unlimited coppers rolled into one. It was different, to be sure, from the other bare stone dwellings of San Pablo, but only in the wild bachelor disorder that reigned within its four naked walls. In one corner was a mountainous husk mattress. Its mate, alleged my host, lay somewhere buried in the jumble; and he verified the assertion not long after by dragging it forth. While he was booting this into some resemblance to a bed, I kicked off my shoes and sank into profound slumber.

Don José, too, awoke at sunrise. His generosity, however, was but a shadow of its former self. On the descent from the town he listened to my objections to the proposed charity without once proffering a reply. In the depth of the valley he halted and stared gloomily up at the steep, sun-glazed path to the station observing that Providence after all is the appointed guardian of the foolhardy. I thrust out a hand. He shook it dejectedly and, bidding me go with God and remember there is no drink equal to ponche, set out to clamber his way back to the village.

Beyond the curve that swept San Pablo into the past a stream brawled down out of the hills. I climbed a little way up the gorge and came upon a tumbled boulder that had stored up a pool of just the depth for a morning plunge. Further on the railway grew more winding with every mile. The hills increased to mountain spurs, and soon after came the mountains themselves, the parched and rock-tumbled Sierra de Honda, fertile only with the memory of smugglers and intricate pathways. The route led through many long, sombrous tunnels, entrance into which from the blazing sunshine was like the diving into a mountain lake. Where the burrowings ended, the line became still more circuitous, leaping over abysmal, jagged gulleys by massive dry bridges.

I fasted all the day; for it was Sunday, and the few station buildings that appeared were deserted. Yet the privation passed almost unnoticed. Were a choice to be made I would willingly sacrifice any day's dinner for the unfailing sunshine of Spain, reinforced by the pleasure of knowing that with the new dawn another unclouded day will begin.