Wanderings in Spain

by Théophile Gautier

You leave Madrid by the gate and bridge of Toledo, which, is adorned with pots, volutes, statues, and pot-grenados of a very ordinary description, but which yet produce rather a majestic effect. You leave on your right the village of Caramanchel, whither Ruy Blas went to procure, for Marie de Neubourg, la petite fleur bleue d'Allemagne (Ruy Blas, now-a-days, would not find the smallest Vergissmeinnicht in this hamlet built of cork on a basement of pumice-stone), and then enter, by a most detestable road, an interminable plain of dust, covered with crops of wheat and rye, whose pale yellow tints increase still more the monotony of the landscape. The only objects which serve to relieve it, in the least, are a few crosses, of evil augury, here and there stretching their skinny arms to the sky, the ends of a few spires in the distance marking the sites of small villages concealed from view, and the dried-up bed of some ravine traversed by a stone arch. From time to time you meet a peasant on his mule, with his carbine slung at his side; a muchacho driving before him two or three asses loaded with jars or chopped straw, secured by small cords, or else some poor tawny, sunburnt woman, dragging along a fierce-looking child, and that is all.

The further we advanced, the more arid and deserted did the country become; and it was not without a secret feeling of satisfaction that we perceived, on a bridge of uncemented stones, the five green dragoons who were to escort us; for it is necessary to have an escort from Madrid to Toledo. Would not a person be almost inclined to believe that he was in the very heart of Algeria, and that Madrid was surrounded by a Mitidja peopled by Bedouins?

We stopped to breakfast at Illescas, a city, or village, I am not certain which, where there are still some remains of the ancient Moorish buildings, and where the windows of the houses are protected by intricate specimens of iron-work and surmounted by a cross.

Our breakfast consisted of soup composed of garlic and eggs, of the inevitable tomata tortilla, and of roasted almonds and oranges, washed down with Val-de-Peñas, which was tolerably good, although thick enough to be cut with a knife, smelling horribly of pitch, and of the colour of mulberry syrup. Spain is certainly not peculiarly brilliant in its cookery, and the hostelries have not been sensibly ameliorated since the time of Don Quixote; the pictures of omelettes full of feathers, of tough cakes, rancid oil, and hard peas that might serve as bullets, are still strictly true, but, on the other hand, I should be rather puzzled to say where you would find, now-a-days, the splendid hens and monstrous geese that graced the marriage-feast of Gamacho.

Beyond Illescas the ground becomes more broken, and the consequence is that the road becomes more abominable, being a mere succession of pits and bogs. This does not prevent you, however, from going along at a furious rate; for Spanish postilions are like Morlachian coachmen, they care very little for what takes place behind them, and provided that they reach their destination, if it is only with the pole and the forewheels, they are satisfied. We arrived, however, without any accident, in the midst of a cloud of dust, raised by our mules and the horses of the dragoons, and made our entry into Toledo, panting with curiosity and thirst, through a most magnificent Arabian gateway, with its elegantly sweeping arch, and granite pillars surmounted by balls, and covered with verses from the Koran. It is called the Puerta del Sol, and is of a rich reddish colour, like a Portugal orange, while the outline stands out admirably from the limpid and azure sky behind. In our foggy climate we can really and truly form no conception of this violence of colour and this sharpness of outline; any paintings that may ever be brought back will always be looked on as exaggerated.

After passing the Puerta del Sol, we found ourselves on a kind of terrace, whence we enjoyed a very extensive view. We saw the Vega, streaked and dappled with trees and crops, which owe their verdure to the system of irrigation introduced by the Moors. The Tagus, which is crossed by the bridge of San Martin and that of Alcantara, rolls its yellowish waters rapidly along, and almost surrounds the town in one of its windings. At the foot of the terrace, the brown, glittering housetops sparkle in the sun, as do also the spires of the convents and churches, with their squares of green and white porcelain arranged like those on a chessboard; beyond these, rise the red hills and bare precipices which form the horizon around Toledo. The great peculiarity of this view is the entire absence of atmosphere and that species of hazy fog which, in our climate, always envelop the prospect; the transparency of the air is such that the lines of the various objects retain all their sharpness, and the slightest detail can be discerned at a very considerable distance.

As soon as our luggage had been examined, our first care was to find some fonda or parador, for it was a long time since we had eaten our eggs at Illescas. We were conducted, through a number of streets so narrow that two loaded asses could not pass abreast, to the fonda del Caballero, one of the most comfortable establishments in the town. Calling to our aid the little Spanish we knew, and indulging in the most pathetic kind of pantomime, we succeeded in explaining to our hostess, who was a most gentle and charming woman, of a highly interesting and lady-like appearance, that we were dying of hunger, a fact which always seems greatly to astonish the natives of the country, who live upon sunshine and air, after the very economical fashion of the chameleon.

The whole tribe of cooks and scullions were immediately in a state of commotion. The innumerable little saucepans in which the highly-spiced ragouts of the Spanish kitchen are distilled and concocted were placed on the fire, and we were promised dinner in an hour's time. We took advantage of this hour to examine the fonda more minutely.

It was a fine building, which had, no doubt, formerly been the residence of some nobleman. The inner courtyard was paved with coloured marble mosaic, and ornamented with wells of white marble and large troughs lined with porcelain for washing the glasses and crockery. This courtyard is called the patio, and is generally surrounded by columns and galleries, with a fountain in the middle. A cloth tendido, which is rolled up in the evening in order to leave a free passage for the cool night-air, serves as a ceiling to this kind of drawing-room. On the first story, all around, there runs an elegantly-worked iron balcony, on which the windows and doors of the apartments open, which apartments you only enter when you wish to dress, dine, or take your siesta. The rest of the time you sit in the courtyard-drawing-room aforesaid, in which the pictures, chairs, sofas, and piano are placed, and which is decked out with flower-pots and boxes containing orange-trees.

We had hardly finished our inspection when Celestina (a fantastic and strange-looking servant-girl) came to inform us, humming a tune all the while, that dinner was ready. It was very respectable, consisting of cutlets, eggs with tomatoes, fowls fried in oil, and trout from the Tagus, to which was added a bottle of Peralta, a warm, liqueur-like wine, with a certain slight perfume of muscat, not at all disagreeable.