"Only fancy!" he began; "the landlord has been here, and the beggar says we'll have to pay double for board and lodging if we don't clear out before the 5th of April."
To my explanation that a time of deep interest was at hand, and that accommodation would be at a premium, Manchester (I felt instinctively he must be a commercial traveller and in the dry-goods line) continued: "Yes, I know: bull-fights, Italian opera at the San Fernando, races, fat women, talking seals, peep-shows, whirligigs—all the fun of the fair. By Jove! I've half a mind to hang on."
He had not heard of the grand open-air religious processions from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, nor of the uniquely pathetic service of the Tenebræ, nor of the gorgeous jubilance of Easter Sunday. Some enemy to Seville spread the rumour that the Republic had set its face against such ceremonies as mere gauds and vanities, customs more honoured in the breach than the observance, and that this year they would not be held. But Seville would not have it so; she would not relinquish her chance of enjoying a religious raree-show and fleecing the foreigner for any Republicans. The civil governor issued a proclamation comforting the lieges by the pledge that now, as ever, the Holy Week would be grandly kept, kept in a way worthy of cultured Seville, and cultured Seville rubbed her hands with glee. Crowds were expected to flock in, and the master of the hotel intended to act royally by them—that is, exact tribute from them whilst they were at his mercy. Seville meant to be awfully devout during Passion Week, and awfully jolly the week after. On Easter Sunday there was to be a bull-fight, one of the finest in Spain, between the greatest of living toreadores and some bulls of choicely savage breed. The annual fair, which was represented to me as a revel of glowing and changing tints in dress—a treat not to be missed by the artist on any account—was to be held in the middle of April, and speculative committees were busy over the details of race-meetings, balls, fireworks, and merry-making generally.
I pressed the representative of the mart of cotton not to depart. But he was obdurate to arguments touching on the æsthetic. For him the sacred Biblico-traditional drama of "The Seven Dolours of the Virgin Mary" had no attraction. He preferred fireworks and the learned pig.
"No," he added, as if musing; "on second thought, I shan't. Bull-fights I can see at Madrid; and the only race-meeting worth attending, I'm told, is that at the place where the sherry is manufactured."
"Surely," I ventured, with artless good-nature, "you will wait to patronize Mr. Spiller, who is advertised as skater-in-ordinary to the Duke of Edinburgh. It will be something to boast of, that you saw him gliding and gyrating before the astonished natives, whose only idea of ice is in the shape of creams, dyed a delicate amber, and tinctured with essence of lemon. Then, again, your countryman, old Tom Price, the Batty of the Peninsula, has pitched his tent on the Alameda of Hercules. He's not to be missed."
"Tom Price—bah! You should go to Astley's, in the Westminster Bridge Road, my boy. That fairly takes the cake. I'm off!"
He went, and I was not sorry; but the spell was broken. I was guest of an inn. My elysian train of reverie had been smashed up; the genius of dry-goods had evicted poetry under circumstances of aggravated harshness; before the stamp of the elastic-sided boot of Manchester, Pedro the Cruel and Alonso the Wise, Murillo and Luca Giordano, Maria de Padilla and Leonora de Guzman, "el Rey Chiquito" Boabdil and the heir of Columbus—all had melted into thinnest of air.
Inexorable duty called me elsewhere before the Holy Week solemnities, so that I have no opportunity of describing them de proprio visu, and I do not care to rehearse twice-told tales. But whilst I was in Seville I wandered to and fro and made good use of my leisure, hearing and seeing as much as most visitors. Of those things which remain imprinted on my memory I may repeat some without incurring—at least so I trust—the imputation of boring the reader. There was a basin in the gardens of the Alcázar, where I was wont to sit beneath the shade of the foliage in the strong heats of noon. There is an anecdote concerning it which impressed me mightily. King Ferdinand was here one day, and was sore perplexed by an affair of state. He required a just and astute judge to decide some vexed question of the first importance. Walking up and down he unconsciously picked an orange, cut it in twain, and flung one half into the water, the cut side downwards. Suddenly an idea struck him. The monarch sent for a judge, and asked what was that floating before him.
"An orange," was the answer.