THE CRADLE AND THE GRAVE OF CERVANTES
IN Rembrandt Peale's picture of the Court of Death a cadaverous shape lies for judgment at the foot of the throne, touching at either extremity the waters of Lethe. There is something similar in the history of the greatest of Spanish writers. No man knew, for more than a century after the death of Cervantes, the place of his birth and burial. About a hundred years ago the investigations of Rios and Pellicer established the claim of Alcalá de Henares to be his native city; and last year the researches of the Spanish Academy have
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proved conclusively that he is buried in the Convent of the Trinitarians in Madrid. But the precise spot where he was born is only indicated by vague tradition; and the shadowy conjecture that has so long hallowed the chapel and cloisters of the Calle Cantarranas has never settled upon any one slab of their pavement.
It is, however, only the beginning and the end of this most chivalrous and genial apparition of the sixteenth century that is concealed from our view. We know where he was christened and where he died. So that there are sufficiently authentic shrines in Alcalá and Madrid to satisfy the most sceptical pilgrims.
I went to Alcalá one summer day, when the bare fields were brown and dry in their after-harvest nudity, and the hills that bordered the winding Henares were drab in the light and purple in the shadow. From a distance the town is one of the most imposing in Castile. It lies in the midst of a vast plain by the green water-side, and the land approach is fortified by a most impressive wall emphasized by sturdy square towers and flanking bastions. But as you come nearer you see this wall is a tradition. It is almost in ruins.
300 CASTILIAN DAYS
The crenellated towers are good for nothing but to sketch. A short walk from the station brings you to the gate, which is well defended by a gang of picturesque beggars, who are old enough to have sat for Murillo, and revoltingly pitiable enough to be millionaires by this time, if Castilians had the cowardly habit of sponging out disagreeable impressions with pennies. At the first charge we rushed in panic into a tobacco-shop and filled our pockets with maravedís, and thereafter faced the ragged battalion with calm.