Spanish Highways and Byways

by Katharine Lee Bates

The affection lavished on children in the household circle is often poetic and passionate. I observed one day a brusque young fellow of twenty-four, whom we had thought rather a hard, catch-penny sort of person, suddenly gather a four-year-old nephew to his heart and cover the dimpled face with kisses, while the look in his own black eyes was the look of a St. Anthony. I stood once in a crowded cathedral and lost all sense of the service in contemplation of an ugly manikin, with coarse features and receding forehead, who held a frail baby boy tight against his breast. This was a blue-eyed, fair-haired wean, with a serious, far-away expression, and from time to time, attracted by the gilt of the ceiling, he raised a tiny pink fore-finger and pointed upward, while the father's animal face, never turned away from the child, became transfigured with love and worship. He took the baby out, when it had fallen asleep upon his shoulder, and it was good to see that dense throng open and make a lane for him, every man, however brutal or frivolous his aspect, being careful not to jostle the drooping, golden head.

But Spanish children, so caressed and so adored, are nevertheless modest in their bearing, and fall shyly back before a stranger. I remember a beaming grandfather displaying to us two blushing little men, bidding them open their eyes wide that we might contrast colors, turn back to back that we might measure heights, and in various ways put their small selves on show, all which they did in mute obedience, but at the word of release flew together, flung their arms about each other's necks, rolled under the nearest table, and curled up into the least possible bunch of bashful agony.

The pictures, frescos, and carvings of Spanish churches often reflect the looks of Spanish childhood. The Holy Family gives a wide range of opportunity, especially in the ministering cherubs. There is a crucifix in one of the twenty-two aisle chapels of Toledo cathedral, where three broken-hearted mites of angels, just three crying babies, are piteously striving to draw out the nails from the Sufferer's hands and feet. Many of the saint-groups admit of child figures, too, as the St. Christopher, which almost invariably appears as a colossal nave painting, "the Goliath of frescos."

It would be strange, indeed, if children were not beloved in the country of Murillo. Spain has let the most of his beggar-boy pictures go to foreign collections, but she has cherished his Holy Families and cherub-peopled Annunciations. Such ecstatic rogues as those Andalusian cherubs are! Their restless ringlets catch azure shadows from the Virgin's mantle; they perch tiptoe on the edges of her crescent moon; they hold up a mirror to her glory and peep over the frame to see themselves; they pelt St. Francis with roses; they play bo-beep from behind the fleecy folds of cloud; they try all manner of aerial gymnastics. But a charm transcending even theirs dwells in those baby Christs that almost spring from the Madonna's arms to ours, in those boy Christs that touch all boyhood with divinity. The son of the Jewish carpenter, happy in his father's workshop with bird and dog; the shepherd lad whose earnest eyes look toward his waiting flock; the lovely playmates, radiant with innocent beauty, who bend together above the water of life—from these alone might Catholic Spain have learned the sacredness of childhood. But Spain first showed Murillo the vision that he rendered back to her.

XIII

THE YOLK OF THE SPANISH EGG

"From Madrid to Heaven, and in Heaven a little window for looking back to Madrid."—Popular Saying.

Few foreigners can understand the sentiment of Spaniards for their capital. Madrid is the crown city of Spain, not by manifest destiny, but by decree of Philip II, who, as his nature was, better loved the harsh Castilian steppe, baked by summer suns and chilled by treacherous winds, than the romantic sierras and gracious river valleys where earlier royal seats had been established. If in Madrid the desert blossoms like the rose, it is a leafless rose, for the city has no suburbs. It lacks both the charm of environment so potent in Granada and Seville and the charm of ancient story, which these share with those other bygone courts—Toledo, Valladolid, Valencia, Saragossa. It is not a vital organ of modern European civilization, like artistic Paris or strenuous London. And yet it is more cosmopolitan, and hence less distinctively Spanish than other cities of the Peninsula. It is devoted to the bull-fight and the lottery, abounds in beggars and prostitutes, does not take naturally to commerce, and is sadly behindhand with popular education. Yet Madrileños cannot be persuaded that the skies behold its equal, and even over the Anglo-Saxon stranger its fascination gradually steals.

In the first place, the mirth of the home life beguiles the serious foreigner. Spanish households have a pleasantness quite their own. All the natural vivacity and kindliness of the people find free play at home, where servants sing and children prattle, ladies chatter and gentlemen jest, all in an atmosphere of ease, leisure, and spontaneous sociability. The father is not preoccupied with business, the mother has never dreamed of belonging to a woman's club, the children have little taste for reading, and few books to read. So talking is the order of the day, and, Sancho Panza! how they talk! Lingering half the morning over the desayuno of thick, cinnamon-flavored chocolate, into which are dipped strips of bread, two-thirds of the afternoon over the almuerzo, a substantial repast of meat and vegetables, fruit and dulces, and all the evening over the comida, where soup and the national dish of puchero are added to the noontide bill of fare, they chatter, chatter, chatter, like the teeth of Harry Gill.