“Don Alfonzo is the Elder Brother of the Confraternity of the Cigar Makers,” whispered Concepcion. “See, he escorts their patron, our Lady of Victory, through the plaza.”
To the mournful grieving of Eslava’s dirge, the Virgin of the cigar makers, escorted by the King, disappeared on the way to her station in the cathedral.
“Te dea major eris!” murmured Pemberton, “so they carried Salambo through Seville. I hope you admired the dress; it was new this year, a present from the ladies of Seville. It cost one hundred and fifty thousand pesetas; I know because I helped pay for it. You saw there were bread riots last week, not fifty miles from here? It’s the old spirit of Seville, the spirit that built the cathedral during the hundred years when Spain was pouring out blood and money like water in defence of the faith. We can always get what we really want in Seville, and most other places!”
During the long waits between the acts of the drama of the Passion, the little dramas of every-day life went on all around us. In the boxes the young people looked into each other’s eyes, the duennas manœuvred, encouraged the eligible, frowned on the ineligible. A slim young officer in a cloak slipped a note into Luz’s hand as he passed her box, and only the Franciscan saw it. In the crowd below, the flirt of an orange skirt challenged beauty in the grand stand.
“Imperio, the dancing girl,” said Pemberton. “She’s come home for the fêtes. That old fellow, her father, is the crack matador tailor; he makes all Bombito’s toggery.”
“Miré,” whispered Concepcion, “The Lord dressed in a handsome tunic of cloth of silver, embroidered in gold.”
The entry into Jerusalem, a realistic float, was passing. It represented the Master mounted on an ass, Peter, John, and Sant Iago kneeling before him. This was followed by a large paso, illustrating the Betrayal in the Garden. Peter, sword in hand, Judas—he was always dressed in yellow, the color of treachery—the Roman soldiers as well as the Christ, are all the work of Montañes. It is said that Montañes while he was at work on this, often got up at night to look at it, and was once overheard to say, “How could I have done anything so beautiful?” In spite of the Master’s ruby velvet robe and the tawdry gilt rays behind his head, the thing took hold of one, the picture “bit” into the memory plate and will not easily be erased. There was a moment of silence as the scenes of the Passion were presented in these wonderful vivid pictures, but as soon as each paso swung by the grand stand, the laughter and flirtation began again. The tragic paso of the Crucifixion was escorted by a brotherhood of boy penitentes followed by a band of child musicians. Directly behind the cross marched a tiny drummer in uniform, beating a big drum. If he was not a dwarf, he could not have been more than four years old.
“What a funny little boy!” murmured Concepcion, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. The supreme scene of the Crucifixion, the figures all by Roldan, the sculptor who spares no grim detail of pain, was followed by stifled laughter. The merriment struck an awful anti-climax.
“Remember,” Pemberton explained, “you are seeing this thing for the first time; these people have seen it all their lives; familiarity breeds, not contempt, but a certain callousness. The young women are so strictly guarded, you must not blame them if they ‘make eyes’ a little. This is one of their few chances to see and be seen.”
“Do you make as much of Christmas as of Holy Week?” I asked Concepcion, to turn the conversation. “Which is the greater fiesta?”