Spanish Highways and Byways

by Katharine Lee Bates

But the morning was slipping away, and we had almost forgotten the oracle of a Spanish gentleman in Palencia: "Leon has three sights for the visitor, and only three—the Cathedral, San Isidoro, and San Marcos." We proceeded to take these illustrious churches in order. The Leon Cathedral, closely analogous to the Gothic masterpieces of northern France, is far beyond all poor praises of mine. Now in process of repair and stripped of the garish shrines of modern worship, it may be enjoyed purely as architecture—a temple of high beauty. Let artists tell of its towers and finials, flying buttresses, gables, cornices, galleries, piers, façades. Yet one need not be an artist to delight in the glow of its great rose windows, or to spend fascinated hours poring over the chiselled story book of portals, stalls, and cloisters. Such inimitable glass, burning still with the fervors of the mediæval faith! And such a world of divinity and humanity, even down to childish mischief, in those multitudinous carvings! The Passion scenes are repeated over and over, creation and judgment are there, the life, death, and ascension of the Virgin, hero legends, animal fables, and folk-lore. Gothic energy is abundantly manifest. St. George smites the dragon, St. Michael tramples the devil, Samson splits the lion's jaws, and Santiago, carved in ebony on a door in the mellow-hued old cloisters, is riding down the Moors with such contagious fury that the very tail of his horse is twisted into a ferocious quirk. On angel-guarded tombs pictures of ancient battle, murder, vengeance, are graven in the long-remembering stone. But marble birds peck at the marble fruit, the ivory peasant drives his pigs, the alabaster shepherd watches his flock, the lad leads his donkey, the monk feeds the poor at the abbey gates, and plump stone priests, stowed away in shadowy niches, make merry over the wine.

Toledo Cathedral. Door of Lions

If we had revelled overmuch in the art values of the cathedral, San Isidoro administered a prompt corrective. This Romanesque church, dating from the beginning of the eleventh century and a forerunner of the Escorial in that it was founded by the first Fernando of Castile as a royal mausoleum, is excessively holy. Not merely are the bones of the patron saint kept on the high altar, but the Host is on constant exhibition there. Unaware of these especial sanctities, we were quietly walking toward the choir, when an angry clamor from behind caused us to turn, and there, stretching their heads out over the railing of an upper gallery, was a line of furious priests. In vain the sacristan strove to excuse us, "foreigners and ladies," who did not know that we were expected to fall upon our knees on first entering the door. We had been guilty of no irreverence beyond this omission, and even under the hail of priestly wrath did our best to withdraw correctly without turning our backs to the altar. But nothing would appease that scandalized row of gargoyles, whose violent rudeness seemed to us the greater desecration. Thus it was that we did not enter the frescoed chambers of the actual Panteon, said to be imposing yet, although the royal tombs were broken up by the French in 1808. Very wrong in the French, but unless the manners of San Isidoro's bodyguard have degenerated, the soldiers of Napoleon may have had their provocation.

It was now high noon, and the market-place had poured all its peasants out upon the streets. Groups of them were lying at luncheon under the trees, passing the pigskin bottle of wine from mouth to mouth. Beggars were standing by and blessing them in return for scraps of the coarse and scanty fare. "May God repay! May the saints prosper thy harvest!"

A woman riding home, sitting erect on the red-striped donkey-bag, handed a plum to her husband, who trudged beside her in gray linen trunks and green velveteen waistcoat, with a white square of cloth set, for ornament, into the middle of the back. He divided the fruit with a pleading cripple, who called after them as devoutly as a man with half a plum in his cheek well could, "May the Blessed Virgin ride forth with you and gladden all your way!"

We had, because of the increasing heat, conjured up a carriage, a species of invalid stage-coach, and were therefore the envy of little schoolboys in blue pinafores. Their straw satchels bobbed on their backs as they gave chase to our clattering ark and clung to steps and door. This mode of locomotion did not save us time, for our coachman had domestic cares on his mind and drew up to bargain for a chicken, which finally mounted with a squall to the box seat; but in due Spanish season we stopped before the plateresque façade of San Marcos.

This is a still unfinished convent, rich in artistic beauties and historic memories. Here, for instance, is a marvellously human head of St. Francis, a triumph of the polychrome sculpture, and here is the little cell where the poet Quevedo, "colossal genius of satire," was imprisoned for over three years by Philip IV, the patron of Velázquez. It is not so easy to cage a mocking-bird, though the satire-pencilled walls have been well whitewashed.

But San Marcos was originally a hospital for pilgrims on the road to Compostela, and conch shells are the central ornamentation of arch and vault and frieze. We accepted the rebuke; we would loiter no more. Early that afternoon we took train for Coruña, after which some agency other than steam must transport us to the mediæval city of St. James.