Wanderings in Spain

by Théophile Gautier

We were obliged to pass through Madrid again, in order to take the diligence to Granada: we could, it is true, have gone and waited for it at Aranjuez, but we should have then run the risk of finding it full; we therefore determined to return to Madrid.

Our guide had taken care, the evening before, to send forward a mule, which was to wait for us halfway along the road, in order to take the place of the one we set out with; for it is doubtful whether, without this precaution, we should have been able to perform the journey from Toledo to Madrid in a single day, owing to the excessive heat we were exposed to along the dusty road, which affords you nowhere the slightest shade, but runs through tracts of open and interminable corn-fields.

We reached Illescas at about one o'clock, with no other incident to talk of than that of being half-baked, if not quite so. We were impatient to get away from a region which possessed nothing new for us, unless passing through it in a contrary direction can be said to add any novelty to the scene.

When we had alighted, my companion preferred to go to sleep; while I, who was already pretty well accustomed to Spanish cookery, began contesting the possession of my dinner with innumerable swarms of flies. The landlady's daughter—a pretty little girl of twelve or thirteen, with Arabian eyes—stood beside me, with a fan in one hand and a little broom in the other, trying to keep off the importunate insects, which returned to the charge more furiously and more noisily than ever as soon as she flagged in the use of either fan or broom. With this assistance I succeeded, however, in getting into my mouth a few pieces somewhat free from flies; and when my hunger was a little appeased I opened a conversation with my pretty fly-flapper, which conversation was, however, kept within very limited bounds by my ignorance of the Spanish language. Yet, with the aid of my diamond dictionary, I succeeded in keeping up the conversation tolerably well for a foreigner. She told me that she could write and read all sorts of print, including even Latin; and that, moreover, she played the pandero pretty well: I immediately requested her to give me a sample of her last-named talent, which she did with a very good grace, though much to the discomfort of my friend, whom the rattling of the brass rings and the hollow sound produced by the little musician's thumb on the ass's skin at length awoke.

The fresh mule was now harnessed, as it was necessary to continue our journey. In a heat of thirty degrees, it requires great moral courage to leave a posada where we see before us several rows of jars, pots, and alcarrazas, covered with beads of moisture. Spain is the only place where a draught of water ever appeared to me real voluptuousness: it is true that the water there is pure, limpid, and of an exquisite taste. The interdiction of wine to Mahometans is a law more easily obeyed than any other in such climates.

Thanks to the eloquent appeals our calesero never ceased making to his mule, and to the pebbles which he continually threw with great dexterity at her ears, we got on pretty well. Under trying circumstances, he called her vieja, revieja (old, twice old), to which injurious terms all mules appear, in general, particularly sensitive, either because the said terms are always accompanied by a blow on the back with the handle of the whip, or because they really are in themselves very offensive. By the aid of these epithets, aptly applied several times, we arrived at the gates of Madrid at about five in the evening.

We were already acquainted with Madrid, and saw nothing new in it, with the exception of the procession of the Corpus Christi: this ceremony has, however, lost much of its former splendour, by the suppression of the convents and religious fraternities; though it still retains an appearance of great solemnity. The streets through which the procession passes are strewed with fine sand, while canvass tendidos, which reach from house to house, afford protection from the sun and keep the air cool: the balconies are decorated with flags and crowded with pretty women in full dress; so that, altogether, the sight is one of the most charming that can well be imagined. The perpetual motion of the fans, which open and shut, tremble and flutter, like the wings of a butterfly about to settle down somewhere; the movements of the elbows of the women, wrapping themselves in their mantles and smoothing an ungraceful wrinkle in their dress; the glances sent from one window to acquaintances at another; the pretty inclination of the head, and the graceful gesture that accompany the agur by which the señoras reply to the salutations of the cavaliers; the picturesque crowd, interspersed with Gallegos, Pasiegas, Valencians, Manolas, and water-sellers, form a spectacle of the greatest animation and the most charming gaiety. The Niños de la Cuna (foundlings), dressed in their blue uniform, walk at the head of the procession. There were but very few out of this long file of children who were endowed with pretty faces; and Hymen himself, with all his conjugal carelessness, would have been troubled to produce offspring uglier than were these children of Love. Then follow the parochial banners, the clergy, silver shrines, and, under a canopy of gold cloth, the Corpus Dei, in a sun of diamonds of the most dazzling brilliancy.

The proverbial devoutness of the Spaniards appeared to me greatly abated; for, with respect to it, one might well have fancied himself in Paris at the time when it was considered fashionable opposition not to kneel to the Host. The men hardly touched the brim of their hats at the approach of the canopy. Catholic Spain no longer exists. The Peninsula is now under the influence of Voltairean and liberal ideas with respect to feudalism, the Inquisition, and fanaticism. To demolish convents appears to her, at present, the height of civilization.

One evening, as I was passing near the post-office at the corner of the Calle de Carretas, I saw the crowd separate precipitately; and then I perceived a brilliant galaxy of light coming up the Calle-Mayor. It was the Host hastening in its carriage to the bedside of some dying person; for the representatives of religion do not yet go about on foot at Madrid. The people had fled, in order to avoid the necessity of kneeling to the host as it passed. As we are speaking of religious ceremonies, we must not forget to mention that in Spain the cross on palls is not white, as in France, but of the colour of brimstone. The Spaniards do not use hearses, but carry their dead to the grave on biers.

Madrid was insupportable to us, and the two days that we were obliged to stay there appeared, at least, two centuries. We could think of nothing but orange-trees, lemon-trees, cachuchas, castanets, and picturesque costumes, for every one related wonders to us about Andalusia with that boastful magniloquence which the Spaniards will never lose any more than the Gascons of France. At length the long desired day arrived, for everything arrives at last, even the day we are waiting for; and we left Madrid in a very comfortable diligence, drawn by a troop of sturdy, close-cropped mules, with shiny coats, and which trotted along at a dashing pace. The diligence was lined with nankeen, and furnished with both roller and green wooden blinds. It appeared to us the ne plus ultra of elegance, after the abominable galleys, sillas volantes, and coaches, in which we had been jolted up to that time; and it would have really proved a very agreeable conveyance, had it not been for the furnace-like heat which calcined us, in spite of the lightness of our dress and the continual movement of our fans. The consequence was, that our rolling stove resounded with a perpetual litany of "Oh, dear! que calor! I am stifled! I am melting!" with numerous other well-assorted exclamations. We bore our sufferings patiently, however, and, with a little grumbling, tranquilly allowed the perspiration to run, like a cascade, down our noses and temples; for, at the end of our fatigues, we had in perspective Granada and the Alhambra, the dream of every poet—Granada, whose name alone makes the heaviest and dullest man in all the world break out into exclamations of admiration, and dance on one leg for delight.