At luncheon next day we were disturbed by a hullabaloo from the attic. The wretched cat had taken her kitten up there, to look for peace from those meddlesome humans. That night we were awakened again by terrible noises from under our bed. The cat was still wandering like a lost soul looking for peace. Daily the kitten appeared and disappeared with exasperating irregularity. At last, however, we managed to tame the cat so that we were able to stroke her. Then the animal burst out into the strangest of noises, like a small badly oiled circular saw. It was purring. From that moment it took possession of the house. All its shyness vanished. It tucked up its sleeves and turned out of the house any other feline intruder.
One afternoon we were awakened from our siesta by a furious cat fight underneath the bed. The black cat and a ginger-coloured female were locked in combat, and making a noise like a hundred siphons. The battle continued across the sitting-room, the ginger cat giving ground. Finally she retreated to the balcony, where there was for a while armed neutrality, both singing war songs quite Spanish in their intervals. Then the black cat sprang. Ginger backed to avoid the rush, but backed too far. She toppled over into the street, fell with a thud on to the mud pavement, gathered herself together and with a scream of disappointed fury dashed through the nearest open door. To our amazement all the occupants of the house, a young man, an old woman, a girl of seventeen and one of six hurried into the street, their eyes wide open with terror.
"What is the matter?" we shouted to them.
"A cat with rabies has just rushed into our house," they cried in answer.
The fear of rabies is very prevalent, and with reason. One does not pat stray dogs in Spain, nor does one make advances to unknown cats. Any animal which can bite is under suspicion. It is lucky, indeed, that fleas can't get rabies.
One Saturday I began sketching in the Cathedral campanile. The ascent of the tower was not by means of steps but by sloping lanes which travelled all round the inner walls. I had chosen my view from the belfry. On each side of me were small bells, and as each in turn clanged out the half or quarter hour according to size I stopped my ears. Suddenly there was a deafening crash. Before I realized what had happened I had fallen from my seat, the easel had gone spinning ... almost fainting from the shock, I looked about me. Over my head an enormous clapper was swinging. Unconsciously, I had seated myself almost inside one of the biggest bells in the south of Spain, and it had rung. The clapper again swung itself with force against the side of the bell, and in spite of my protecting hands the sound burst through my head. For ten minutes afterwards my hand was shaking too violently to allow me to paint.
The view from the tower was exquisite. Immediately below me were the blue glazed cupolas and the arabesques of the cathedral facade on which little stone saints gazed out over the town. Then came a large square centred on a circular garden of flowers—edged on one side by the pink front of the Archbishop's palace, many windowed. From the end of the square narrow sunless streets led into the town, which gradually became a patchwork of flat roofs on which smaller buildings were erected. The huge square block of red brick of the Reina Victoria Hotel stood out over the sinuous river, on the banks of which stood the red pepper mills and beyond which showed the huertas stretching out to the mountains. Red, ochre, yellow and green were the chief colour notes, while blue and purple shadows gave relief and solidity to the whole.
In the evening I played the piano at the house of Luis' friends. Here was a typical Spanish bourgeois interior. Every resting-place was crowded with cheap bric-à-brac. The chairs were draped with velvet and silk hangings and antimacassars; the walls hung with enormous photographic enlargements, from the decorating of which Flores made some of his living. Card-racks covering the interspaces of the walls were filled with coloured picture postcards.
"We have brought you here," said Flores, "because it is just opposite to the Circulo des Varios Artes.[28] The pianist of the Arts Club is very conceited. We want to take him down, by showing him that a Señora can play better than he does."
I was rather annoyed; but could not draw back. So I put my best into the music. Grieg (pronounced by them Hriech) seems to suit the Spanish temperament: so I played The Wedding March, Papillion and the Carnival. There was a pause. Then faintly as a retort, from the Circulo des Varios Artes, came the easiest of Grieg's "lyrical pieces" played carefully by the maestro. As if he would say, "I too can play Grieg."