Gautier Théophile
Wanderings in Spain
We were to stop for the night at a little town called Alhama, perched like an eagle's nest upon the top of a mountain peak. Nothing can be more picturesque than the sharp angle which the road conducting to this eyrie is obliged to make, in order to adapt itself to the unevenness of the ground. We reached our destination about two in the morning, half dead with hunger and thirst, and worn out with fatigue. We quenched our thirst by means of three or four jars of water, and appeased our hunger by a tomato omelette, which, considering it was a Spanish one, did not contain too many feathers. A stony kind of mattress, bearing a strong family likeness to a sack of walnuts, was given us for a couch. At the expiration of two minutes, I was buried in that peculiar sleep attributed to the Just, and my companion religiously followed my example. The day surprised us in the same attitudes, as motionless as lumps of lead.
I went down into the kitchen to implore them to give me some food, and, thanks to my eloquence, obtained some cutlets, a fowl fried in oil, and half of a water-melon, besides for dessert, some Barbary figs, whose prickly skin the landlady took off very dexterously. The water-melon did us a great deal of good; the rosy pulp contained inside its green rind has a most delightfully cool and thirst-assuaging look. Scarcely have you bitten it, before you are inundated up to your elbows with a very agreeably-flavoured and slightly sweet juice, which bears no sort of resemblance to that of our cantaloups. We really stood in need of this refreshing fruit to moderate the burning effects of the peppers and spices with which all Spanish dishes are seasoned. We were on fire internally and roasted externally; the heat was atrocious. We lay down upon the brick floor of our room, on which the forms of our bodies were marked by pools of perspiration. The only method we could discover for rendering the place, comparatively speaking, a little cool, was by closely shutting all the doors and windows, and remaining in complete darkness.
In spite of this Indian temperature, however, I boldly threw my jacket over my shoulder, and went out to take a turn in the streets of Alhama. The sky was as white as metal in a state of fusion: the pavingstones glistened as if they had been waxed and polished; the whitewashed walls presented a micaceous scintillating appearance, while the pitiless blinding sunshine penetrated into every hole and corner. The shutters and doors were cracking with heat, the gasping soil was full of yawning fissures, and the branches of the vines writhed like green wood when thrown into the fire; while, in addition to all this, there was the reflection of the neighbouring rocks, which cast back the rays of light even hotter than they were before. To complete my torture, I had got on very thin shoes, through which the pavement burnt the soles of my feet. There was not a breath of air, not so much wind as would have ruffled a feather. It is impossible to conceive anything more dull, more melancholy, or more savage.
I wandered at hazard through the solitary streets, whose chalk-coloured walls, pierced by a few windows, scattered far apart, and closed by means of wooden shutters, gave them a completely African appearance, until, I will not say without meeting a human being, but absolutely without seeing a living creature, I reached the great square, which is exceedingly picturesque and quaint. It is crossed by the stone arches of an aqueduct, and consists simply of a level space cleared away on the bare rock itself, which has grooves cut in it to prevent persons from slipping. The whole of one side overlooks the abyss, at the bottom of which peep out, from the midst of clumps of trees, several mills that are turned by a torrent which foams so violently that it resembles a quantity of soap-suds.
The hour fixed upon for our departure was approaching, and I returned to the posada wet through with perspiration, just as if I had been out in a heavy shower of rain, but satisfied at having done my duty as a traveller, although you might have boiled eggs by the mere heat of the atmosphere.
Our caravan again set out, proceeding through most abominable but highly picturesque roads, where no other creature but a mule could have stood without falling. I had thrown the bridle on the neck of mine, thinking that he was better qualified to direct his steps than I was, and leaving him all the responsibility of passing the dangerous points. I had already had several very animated discussions with him, in order to induce him to walk beside the mule of my companion, but I was at last convinced of the inutility of my efforts. I bow, in all submission, to the truth of the saying —As obstinate as a mule. Give a mule the spur and it will stand still; touch it with a whip, it will lie down; pull it up, and it will start off at full gallop: in the mountains, a mule is really intractable; it feels its importance and takes a most unfair advantage of it. Very often, right in the middle of the road, a mule will suddenly stop, raise its head, stretch out its neck, draw back its lips, so as to expose its gums and long teeth, and indulge in a series of the most horrible inarticulate sighs, convulsive sobs, and frightful clucking, resembling the shrieks of a child who is being murdered. During the time it is indulging in this system of vocalization you might kill it, without being able to make it move one step.
Our path now lay through a veritable Campo Santo. The crosses erected where murders had been committed, became frightfully numerous: in the situations that were favourable to this kind of thing, we sometimes counted more than three or four crosses in less than a hundred paces; we were no longer on a road, but in a cemetery. I must own, however, that if it were the custom in France to perpetuate the memory of violent deaths by the erection of crosses, there would be quite as many of them in certain streets of Paris as there are on the road from Grenada to Velez-Malaga. The dates of a great number of these sinister monuments are already very old; it is very certain, however, that they keep the traveller's mind actively employed, rendering him attentive to the slightest noise, causing him to look very carefully about him, and hindering any feeling of ennui. At every turn of the road, he says to himself, if he sees a rock that looks at all suspicious, or a mysterious cluster of trees: "There is some vagabond concealed behind there, who is the act of taking aim, and is on the point of making me the pretext for another cross destined to edify the travellers of future generations who may happen to pass by the spot."
When we emerged from the defiles, the crosses became somewhat less frequent. Our road now lay along the bases of stern, grand mountains, whose summits were cut off by immense archipelagos of mist. The country was a complete desert, with no other habitations save the reed hut of some aguador, or vender of brandy. This brandy is colourless, and is drunk out of long glasses filled up with water, which it causes it to turn white exactly as Eau-de-Cologne would.
The weather was heavy and stormy, and the heat suffocating: a few large drops of water, the only ones that had fallen for a space of four months, from the implacable sky of lapis-lazuli, spotted the parched sand, and made it resemble a panther's skin; however, there was no shower after all, and the canopy of heaven resumed its immutable serenity. The sky was so constantly blue during my stay in Spain, that I find the following notice in my pocketbook: "Saw a white cloud," as if such an object was worthy of being especially recorded. We inhabitants of the north are so accustomed to behold the heavens covered with clouds, constantly varying in form and colour, and with which the wind builds mountains, islands, and palaces, that it soon destroys again to build elsewhere, that we cannot form any conception of the feeling of profound melancholy caused by this azure tint, as uniform as eternity itself, and which is always hanging over one's head. In a little village which we traversed, all the population were standing outside their houses in order to enjoy the rain, just as we should go in doors to avoid it.
The night has set in without any twilight, almost in an instant, as is the case in warm climates, and we were not very far from Velez-Malaga, where we intended sleeping. The mountain-steeps began to be less abrupt, and gradually subsided in small stony plains, traversed by streams fifteen or twenty feet broad, and one foot deep; their banks were covered with gigantic reeds. The funeral crosses again became more numerous than ever, and their white colour caused them to stand out distinctly from the blue mist of night. We counted three of them in the distance of twenty paces, but the fact is, that the spot presents a most lonely appearance, and is admirably adapted for an ambuscade.
It was eleven o'clock when we entered Valez-Malaga; the windows were joyfully lighted up, and the streets re-echoed with songs and the sounds of guitars. The young maidens seated in the balconies were singing verses which the novios accompanied from the street below, and each stanza was followed by laughter, shouts, and applause, which I thought would never end. Other groups were dancing the cachucha, the fandango, and the jalo, at the corners of the streets. The guitars emitted a dull hum like that of bees, the castagnettes rattled merrily, and all was music and delight. It would almost appear as if the most important business of a Spaniard's life were pleasure; he gives himself up to it, heart and soul, with admirable ease and frankness. No nation in the world appears to know less of misfortune than the Spaniards, and a stranger travelling through the Peninsula can scarcely believe that the state of political affairs can be so serious, or that he is traversing a country which for ten years has been ravaged and laid waste by civil war. Our peasants are far from possessing the happy carelessness, the joyful look, and the elegant costume of the Andalusian majos, and in the matter of education they are greatly inferior to them. Almost all the Spanish peasants can write; their minds are stored with poetry, which they recite or sing without destroying the measure; they are good horsemen, and very dexterous in the use of the knife and carbine. It is true that the admirable fertility of the soil and the beauty of the climate relieves them from the necessity of that brutalizing work, which, in less favoured countries, reduces man to the condition of a beast of burden or a machine, and robs him of those two gifts of heaven, force and beauty.
It was not without a feeling of the profoundest satisfaction, that I tied my mule to the bars of the posada.
Our supper was extremely frugal; all the servants, both male and female, were gone out to dance, so that we had to content ourselves with a simple gaspacho. The gaspacho is worthy of a particular description, and we will therefore give our readers the receipt for making it – a receipt which would have caused the late Brillat-Savarin's hair to stand on end with horror. You first pour some water into a soup-tureen; to this water you then add a small quantity of vinegar, some cloves of garlic, some onions cut into quarters, some sliced cucumber, a little pimento, and a pinch of salt. You then cut some slices of bread and let them soak in this agreeable compound, which is served up cold. In France, a dog with the least pretensions to a good education would refuse to compromise himself by putting his nose into such a mixture; but it is the favourite dish of the Andalusians, and the most lovely women do not hesitate of an evening, to swallow large messes of this diabolical soup. The gaspacho is considered very refreshing, an opinion which struck us, allowing scope for some diversity of opinion; yet, strange as the mixture appears the first time you taste it, you gradually grow accustomed to it, and, ultimately, even like it. By a providential chance we had, to enable us to wash down this meagre repast, a large decanterful of excellent dry white Malaga, which we conscientiously finished to the last pearly drop, and which restored our strength, that was completely exhausted by a ride of nine hours, over the most improbable roads, and in a temperature like that of a limekiln.
At three o'clock the conveyance set out once more upon its march. The sky looked lowering; a warm mist hung over the horizon, and the humidity of the air warned us that we were approaching the sea, which soon afterwards appeared in the extreme distance like a streak of hard blue. A few fleecy flakes of foam were visible here and there, while the waves came and died away in regular volutes upon the sand, which was as fine as boxwood sawdust. High cliffs rose upon our right. At one moment the rocks separated and left us a free passage, and at the next they barricaded the road, and obliged us to wind slowly round them. It is not often that Spanish roads proceed in a right line; it would be so difficult a task to overcome the various obstacles, that it is far better to go round than to surmount them. The famous motto, Linea recta brevissima, would in Spain be completely false.
The rising sun dispersed the mist as if it had been so much smoke; the sky and the sea recommenced their azure struggle, in which it is impossible to say which of the two is victorious; the cliffs reassumed their varied tints of reddish-brown, shot-colour, amethyst, and burnt topaz; the sand began once again to rise in small thin clouds, and the water to glisten in the intensity of the sunshine. Far, far away, almost on the line of the horizon, the sails of five fishing-boats palpitated in the wind like the wings of a dove.
The declivities now became less steep; from time to time, a little house appeared, as white as lump-sugar, with a flat roof, and a kind of peristyle formed by a vine clustering over trellis-work, supported at each end by a square pillar, and in the middle by a massive pylone, that presented quite an Egyptian appearance. The aguardiente stores became more numerous; they were still built of reeds, but they were more natty, and boasted of whitewashed counters daubed with a few streaks of red. The road, which was now distinctly marked out, began to be lined on each side with a line of cactus and aloe-trees, broken now and then by gardens and houses, before which women were mending nets, and children, completely naked, playing about. On seeing us pass by on our mules, they cried out, "Toro! Toro!" taking us, on account of our majo costume, for proprietors of ganaderias, or for the toreros belonging to the quadrille directed by Montes.
Carts drawn by oxen and strings of asses now followed at shorter intervals, and the bustle which invariably marks the neighbourhood of a large town became every moment more apparent. On all sides, convoys of mules, carrying persons who were on their way to witness the opening of the circus, made their appearance: we met a great number in the mountains coming from a distance of thirty or forty leagues. The aficionados are as superior, by their passionate and furious love of their favourite amusement, to our dilettanti, as the interest excited by a bull-fight is superior to that produced by the representation of an opera: nothing stops them; neither the heat, nor the difficulty or danger of the journey; provided they reach their destination and obtain a place near the barrera, from which they can pat the bull on the back, they consider themselves amply repaid for whatever fatigue they may have undergone. What tragic or comic author can boast of possessing such powers of attraction? This, however, does not prevent a set of namby-pamby sentimental authors from pretending that the taste for this barbarous amusement, as they term it, is every day gradually dying away in Spain.
It is impossible to conceive anything more picturesque and strange than the environs of Malaga. You appear to be transported to Africa: the dazzling whiteness of the houses, the deep indigo colour of the sea, and the overpowering intensity of the sun, all combine to keep up the illusion. On each side of the road are numbers of enormous aloe-trees, bristling up and waving their leafy cutlasses, and gigantic cactuses with their green broad foliage and misshapen trunks, writhing hideously like monstrous boa-constrictors, or resembling the backbones of so many stranded whales; while here and there a palm-tree shoots up like a column, displaying its green capital by the side of some tree of European parentage, which seems surprised at such a neighbour, and alarmed at seeing the formidable vegetation of Africa crawling at its feet.
An elegant white tower now stood out upon the blue sky behind; it was the Malaga lighthouse; we had reached our destination. It was about eight o'clock in the morning; the town was already alive and stirring: the sailors were passing and re-passing, loading and unloading the vessels anchored in the port, and displaying a degree of animation which was something uncommon in a Spanish town; the women, with their heads and figures enveloped in large scarlet shawls, which suited their Moorish faces most marvellously, were walking quickly along, and dragging after them some brat, who was entirely naked, or who had only got on a shirt. The men, with their cloaks thrown round them, or their jackets cast over their shoulders, hurried on their way; and it is a curious fact, that all this crowd was proceeding in the same direction, – that is, towards the Plaza de Toros. What struck me most, however, in this multicoloured concourse of people, was the sight of the negro galley-slaves, dragging a cart. They were of gigantic stature, with such monstrously savage faces, possessing so little of anything human, and stamped with such an expression of ferocious brutality, that on beholding them I stopped motionless with horror, as if they had been a team of tigers. The kind of linen robe which constituted their dress rendered their appearance still more diabolical and fantastic. I do not know what crime had brought them to the galleys; but I should certainly have sent them there merely because they were villains enough to have such faces.
We put up at the parador of the Three Kings, which, comparatively speaking, is a very comfortable establishment, shaded by a fine vine, whose tendrils clustered round the ironwork of the balcony, and adorned with a large room, where the landlady sat enthroned behind a counter, loaded with porcelain, somewhat after the fashion of the Parisian cafés. A very beautiful servant-girl, a charming specimen of the lovely women for which Malaga is celebrated all through Spain, showed us to our rooms, and threw us, for a few minutes, into a state of desperate anxiety, by informing us that all the places in the circus were already taken, and that we should have great difficulty in procuring any. Fortunately, our cosario, Lanza, got us two asientos de preferencia (numbered seats); it is true that they were exposed to the sun, but we did not care for that. We had long since sacrificed the freshness of our complexion, and were not particular about our bistre-coloured yellow faces becoming a trifle more sunburnt. The circus was to be open during three days consecutively. The tickets for the first day were crimson; for the second, green; and for the third, blue; in order that there might be no confusion, and that the lovers of the sport might not obtain admission twice with the same card.
While we were breakfasting, a company of travelling students came in. They were four in number, and were more like some of Ribiera's or Murillo's models than theological students, so ragged, barefooted, and dirty were they. They sang some comic songs, accompanying themselves with the tambourine, the triangle, and the castagnettes. The one who played the pandero was a virtuoso in his way: he performed on his ass's skin with his knees, his elbows, and his feet, and, not content with these various means of percussion, would now and then apply the dirk, ornamented with its copper circles, on the head of some muchacho, or old woman. One of the students, who was the orator of the band, went round to collect alms, and indulged, with an excessive amount of volubility, in all sorts of pleasantry, in order to excite the generosity of the company. "A realito!" he exclaimed, throwing himself into the most supplicating postures, "so that I may finish my studies, become a priest, and live without doing anything." Whenever he obtained a small piece of silver, he stuck it on his forehead, near to those he had already extorted, exactly like the Almees, who cover their faces, bathed in perspiration, with the sequins and piastres which the enchanted Osmanlis have thrown them.
The performances were to begin at five o'clock, but we were advised to be at the circus at about one, as the corridors would be choked up by the crowd at an early hour, and prevent us from reaching our places, although they were numbered and reserved. We swallowed our breakfast, therefore, as quickly as we could, and set out towards the Plaza de Toros, preceded by our guide Antonio, a tall, thin fellow, whose waist was tied in most atrociously by a broad red sash, increasing still more his natural meagreness, which he pleasantly attributed to the fact of his having been crossed in love.
The streets were swarming with an immense multitude, which became more and more dense as we approached the circus; the aguadors, the venders of iced cebada, of paper fans, and parasols, and of cigars, as well as the calessin drivers, were creating a frightful uproar: a confused rumour floated over the town like a fog of noise.
After twisting and turning about, for a considerable time, in the narrow, complicated streets of Malaga, we at last arrived before the building, whose exterior offers nothing remarkable. A detachment of troops had considerable difficulty in keeping back the crowd, which would otherwise have invaded the Circus; although it was not more than one o'clock, at the latest, the seats were all occupied from top to bottom, and it was only by a free use of our elbows, and the interchange of a profusion of invectives, that we succeeded in reaching our stalls.
The Circus at Malaga is really antique in size, and will contain twelve or fifteen thousand spectators in its vast funnel-like interior, of which the arena forms the bottom, while the acroteria rises to the height of a five-storied house. It gives you a notion of what the Roman amphitheatres must have been, as well as those terrible spectacles where men were opposed to wild beasts, under the eyes of a whole nation.
It is impossible to conceive any sight more strange and more splendid, than that of these immense rows of seats occupied by an impatient crowd, endeavouring to while away the hours they had to wait by all kinds of jokes and andaluzados of the most piquant originality. The number of persons in modern costume was very limited; those who were dressed in this manner were greeted with shouts of laughter, cries, and hisses; this improved the general appearance of the audience very much; the vivid-coloured jackets and sashes, the scarlet drapery of the women, and the green and jonquil fans, prevented the crowd from presenting that black, lugubrious aspect which always distinguishes it in France, where the sombre tints predominate.
There was a great number of women present, and I remarked very many pretty ones among them. The Malagueña is remarkable for the pale, golden uniformity of her complexion, tinging her cheek no more than it does her forehead, for her long oval face, the bright carnation of her lips, the delicacy of her nose, and the brilliancy of her Arabian eyes, which any one might suppose were tinged with henna, on account of the length the eyelashes extend towards the temples. I do not know whether we must attribute it to the severe folds of drapery round their faces, but they have a serious, passionate look, which is completely Eastern in its character, and which is not possessed by the women of Madrid, Granada, or Seville, who are smaller, more graceful, and more coquet, and always thinking somewhat of the effect they produce. I saw some admirable heads, superb types, by which the painters of the Spanish school have not sufficiently profited, and which would furnish an artist of talent with matter for a series of precious and entirely new studies. According to our notions, it appears strange that women can like to witness a performance, in which the lives of human beings are every moment in danger, where blood flows in large pools, and where the wretched horses are gored until their feet get entangled in their own intestines; a person unacquainted with the true state of the case would be very likely to imagine that women who could do this were brazen-faced, shameless creatures, but he would be greatly mistaken.
Never did more gentle, Madonna-like faces, more silken eyelashes, or more gentle smiles ever watch over a sleeping child. The various chances of the bull's death are attentively observed by pale, lovely beings, of whom an elegiac poet would be glad to make an Elvira. The merit of the different thrusts is discussed by mouths so pretty that you would fain hear them talk of nothing but love. Because they behold unmoved scenes of carnage which would cause our sensitive Parisian beauties to faint, it must not be inferred that they are cruel and deficient in tenderness of soul; in spite of their presence at such sights, they are good, simple-minded, and full of compassion for the unfortunate. But custom is everything; the sanguinary side of a bull-fight, which is what strikes foreigners the most forcibly, is exactly that which least interests Spaniards, who devote their whole attention to the importance of the different blows and the amount of address displayed by the toreros, who do not run so great a risk as might at first be imagined.
It was not more than two o'clock, and the sun inundated with a deluge of fire all the seats on the side we were placed. How we envied those favoured individuals who were revelling in the bath of shade, thrown over them by the upper boxes! After riding thirty leagues in the mountains, the fact of remaining the whole day exposed to an African sun, with the thermometer at thirty-eight, is rather creditable on the part of a wretched critic, who, on this occasion, had paid for his place and did not wish to lose it.
The asientos de sombra (places in the shade) hurled all kinds of sarcasms at us; they sent us the water-merchants, to prevent us from catching fire; they begged permission to light their cigars at our fiery noses, and kindly offered us a little oil in order that we might be properly fried. We answered as successfully as our means would allow, and when the shade, shifting as the day advanced, delivered up one of our tormentors to the rays of the sun, the event was celebrated by shouts of laughter and an endless tumult of applause.
Thanks to some jars full of water, some dozen oranges, and two fans in constant movement, we managed not to catch fire, and we were not quite roasted, nor struck by apoplexy when the musicians took possession of the places set apart for them, and the picket of cavalry proceeded to clear the arena for a whole host of muchachos and mozos, who, by some inexplicable process, found places among the general mass of spectators, although, mathematically speaking, there was not room for one more; under certain circumstances, however, a crowd is marvellously elastic.
An immense sigh of satisfaction proceeded from the fifteen thousand breasts that were now relieved from the irksome necessity of waiting any longer. The members of the Ayuntamiento were greeted with frantic applause, and on their entering their box, the orchestra struck up the national airs —Yo que soy Contrabandista and the march of Riego– the whole assemblage singing them at the same time, clapping their hands, and stamping their feet.
We do not here pretend to give a detailed account of a bull-fight. We have already had occasion to describe one with conscientious accuracy, during our sojourn in Madrid, and shall therefore only relate the principal events and remarkable instances of skill that occurred in the course of the performances, during which the same combatants appeared three days without resting, twenty-four bulls were killed and ninety-six horses stretched dead upon the arena, without any accident happening to any of the combatants, with the exception of one capeador, whose arm was slightly gored by a bull's horn; his wound, however, was not dangerous, and did not prevent his appearance in the circus the following day.
At five o'clock precisely the gates of the arena were thrown open, and the actors in the drama about to be presented proceeded in procession round the circus. At the head were the three picadores, Antonio Sanchez and Jose Trigo, both from Seville, and Francisco Briones, from Puerto Real, with their hand upon their hip and their lance upon their foot, as grave as Roman conquerors going in triumph to the Capitol. On the saddles of their horses was the name of the proprietor of the circus, Antonio Maria Alvarez, formed with gilt-headed nails. After them came the capeadores or chulos, with their cocked-hats and gaudy-coloured mantles; while the banderilleros, dressed like Figaro, followed close behind. In the rear of the cortége, in majestic isolation, marched the two matadores, —the swords, as they are styled in Spain, – Montes de Chiclana, and Jose Parra de Madrid. Montes was always accompanied by his own faithful quadrille, a very important thing for the safety of the combatants; for in these times of political dissensions, it often happens that the Christino toreros will not assist the Carlist toreros when in danger, and vice versâ. The procession was significantly terminated by the team of mules destined to remove the dead bulls and horses.
