Promesa
de Francisca
30 Noviembre 1902
Pollensa.
Now who was Francisca? And why did she promise to cut off her beautiful hair? Was it to avert the fatal issue of some illness of her own? Or was it because her lover was ill, or in danger by land or sea? Or was Francisca merely afraid that he might prove faithless?
Whatever the nature of the terror Francisca dreaded, it was happily averted. The presence of the severed tresses assured us of that. But it was a particularly fine pigtail, and the sight of it tempted one to wonder what the feeling of Juan, or Pedro, or Miguel was when he first saw his sweetheart with closely cropped locks, and found that she had shorn off her glory for his sake. It is to be trusted that Francisca's hair was not her only beauty.
From the terraced slope of the Calvario one gets a magnificent view of the town. Looking down on the tiled roofs, all tawny-brown with the passing of centuries, it is easy to realize the great age of Pollensa. The city itself occupies but a circumscribed area, so narrow are the streets, so huddled together the houses. There is scarcely room for a green leaf to sprout between them. But where the town ends abruptly the real country begins, and in the parts that are not closely flanked by hills the ancient town is girdled by a belt of almond-trees. And all about it the fertile ground is cut up into small holdings, each with its little yellow-brown dwelling-house.
On every side, as far as the eye can reach, rise mountains, a glimpse of blue sea showing here and there between their rocky crags. Above one side of the town towers an isolated peak, from whose crest a magnificent panoramic view of half of the island of Majorca, and even a distant glimpse of Minorca, can be obtained.
A superbly situated building that was once the Convent of Nuestra Señora del Puig (Our Lady of the Peak) crowns the top of the height. It was so named because of a marvellous image of the Virgin discovered by the nuns who were in residence there. In olden days, when the building was in the possession of the Church, the Convent of Our Lady of the Peak supported an hospederia for the shelter of pilgrims; and now that the holy sisterhood has removed to Palma, the authorities of Pollensa continue to uphold their hospitable custom, and every traveller who mounts the steep—rather a stiff climb, by the way—is welcome to free lodging with fire, oil, olives, and goat's cheese for three nights and days at the expense of the town.
As we looked from the Calvario where we were standing across the valley to the noble pile of the old convent, and thought how sublime the sunrises and sunsets would be, viewed from Our Lady of the Peak, I registered a vow to make a pilgrimage thither some day. The Man chose to be pleasantly sarcastic regarding the fulfilment of the intention. He cherishes a perhaps not altogether unfounded belief that I wish to revisit every place I have seen in Majorca. But we shall see....
As we passed back through the market-square, the business of buying and selling was still in progress. In every quarter of the town, down back alleys, mounting up the steps towards the Calvario, in the farthest-out streets, we had met women carrying home the Brobdingnagian cabbages. Dinners were already cooking over the little fires of almond shells, and the odour of boiling cabbage came from many earthenware cooking-pots, yet the piles seemed scarcely diminished.
The cattle-market—a matter of a score or two of piglings, half a dozen sheep, a few horses—was held in the square before our fonda, and while it lasted the interest of the wearers of the colsons en bufer centred there, though, as far as we could judge from our balcony, they took no active part in the trafficking. They had all brown, weather-beaten, shrewd old faces, and all gave the impression of leading lives of extreme respectability. It was impossible to imagine any one of them falling foul of the law.