полная версия

Gautier Théophile
Wanderings in Spain

All this did not prevent our making an excellent dinner, washed down with the best wines, and seasoned with the most agreeable conversation, as well as, by the bye, with the most diabolical Indian spices, which would cause even a person afflicted with hydrophobia to drink. The next day, as the weather was still so bad that it was impossible to send a boat to fetch fresh provisions from the land, our dinner was no less delicate; but it was rather remarkable from the fact of every dish being rather ancient in date. We had green peas of 1836, fresh butter of 1835, and cream of 1834; all preserved in a miraculous fashion. The bad weather lasted for two days, during which time I walked up and down the deck, never weary of admiring the scrupulous cleanliness, which would have done honour to a Dutch housewife; the finish of the details, and the talent visible in the arrangement of that prodigy of the human mind which is simply termed a vessel. The brass of the carronades glittered like gold, and the planks were as polished as the finest satin-wood furniture. Every morning the crew have to dress the vessel for the day; and though the rain were to come down like a waterspout, the deck would be washed, inundated, sponged, and swabbed all the same.

At the expiration of two days, the wind fell, and we were conveyed on shore in a boat manned by ten rowers.

My black coat, however, which was strongly impregnated with sea-water, obstinately refused, when dry, to resume its former elasticity, and was ever after spangled with brilliant crystal-like particles, and as stiff as a salted cod.

The aspect of Cadiz from the sea is charming. When the town is seen thus, with its buildings of dazzling white between the azure of the sea and the azure of the sky, you might almost mistake it for an immense crown of silver filigree work; while the dome of the cathedral, which is painted yellow, appears to be a silver-gilt tiara placed in the middle. The flower-pots, volutes, and turrets, which crown the houses, give their outlines an infinite variety. Byron has characterised the physiognomy of Cadiz in a marvellous manner, and with a single touch:

 
"Fair Cadiz, rising from the dark blue sea!"
 

In the next stanza, the English poet does not speak in the very highest terms of the virtue of the women of Cadiz, and he, no doubt, had good reasons for his opinion. As far as I am concerned, and without at present going into this delicate question, I shall content myself with saying they are very beautiful, and that their beauty is of a very peculiar and decided cast; their complexion is remarkable for that whiteness of polished marble which shows off the purity of feature to such advantage. Their nose is less aquiline than that of the women of Seville; their forehead is small, and their cheek-bones not at all prominent; their whole physiognomy bears a great resemblance to that of the women of Greece. They also struck me as being fatter and taller than other Spanish women. Such at least was the result of the observations I was enabled to make while walking in El Salon, or on the Plaza de la Constitucion, or when I was at the theatre, where I may parenthetically mention, I saw the Gamin de Paris (el Piluelo de Paris), exceedingly well played by an actress in male attire, and some Boleros danced in a very animated and sprightly manner.

But however agreeable Cadiz may be, the idea of being cooped up within its narrow limits, first by the ramparts and secondly by the sea, makes you desire to leave it. It seems to me that the only wish islanders can have, is to go upon the Continent; and this explains the perpetual emigrations of the English, who are everywhere save at London, where there are only Italians and Poles. As a proof of this, the people of Cadiz are perpetually crossing from Cadiz to Puerto de Santa Maria, and vice versâ. A sort of marine omnibus, in the form of a small steamer, which leaves every hour, sailing vessels, and boats are always lying in readiness, and exciting the vagabond inclinations of the inhabitants. One fine morning my companion and myself recollected that we had a letter of introduction from a friend of ours in Granada to his father, who was a rich merchant in Jeres. The aforesaid letter was couched in these terms: "Open your heart, your house, and your cellar, to the two gentlemen whom you will receive herewith." This being the case, we clambered on board the steamer; in the cabin we saw a bill stuck up, announcing a bull-fight, interspersed with comic interludes, to take place the same evening, at Puerto de Santa Maria. This filled up our day admirably, for by taking a calessin, we might go from Puerto to Jeres, stop there a few hours, and return in time to witness the bull-fight. After having swallowed a hasty breakfast in the Fonda de Vista Alegre, which most certainly deserves its name, we made a bargain with a driver who promised that he would bring us back by five o'clock, in time for the funcion, which is the name given in Spain to every public amusement, no matter what. The road to Jeres runs through a hilly, rugged plain, as dry as a piece of pumice-stone. This desert is said to be covered, in the spring, with a rich carpet of verdure, enamelled with wild flowers; broom, lavender and thyme, scent the air with their aromatic emanations; but at the time of year when we beheld it, all traces of vegetation had disappeared. The only thing we saw was, here and there, a little plot of dry, yellow, filamentous grass all powdered over with dust. This road, if we may believe the local chronicle, is very dangerous, being much infested by rateros, that is to say, peasants, who, without being professional brigands, avail themselves of the opportunity of taking a purse whenever they can, and never resist the pleasure of plundering any solitary traveller. These rateros are more to be dreaded than real robbers, who always act with the regularity of an organized body, under the command of a chief, and who spare the travellers, in order to extort something more from them at some other time. Besides this, you do not attempt to resist a brigade of twenty or twenty-five on horseback, well equipped and armed to the teeth, whereas you will struggle with a couple of rateros, and get killed, or at least wounded. And then the ratero who is about to attack you, may be that cowherd just passing, that ploughman who touches his hat to you, that ragged, bronzed muchacho who is sleeping, or pretending to sleep, under a narrow strip of shade, in a cleft of the ravine, or even your calesero himself who is taking you into some snare. You do not know where to look for the danger – it is everywhere and nowhere. From time to time the police cause the most dangerous and best known of these wretches to be assassinated in some tavern quarrel, got up expressly for the purpose by its agents. This is rather a summary and barbarous mode of justice, but it is the only one possible, on account of the absence of all proofs and witnesses, and the difficulty of apprehending criminals in a country where it would require an army to arrest each single man, and where a system of counter-police is carried out with such intelligence and passion by a people who entertain ideas with respect to meum and tuum, hardly more advanced than those of the Kabyls of Africa. On this occasion, however, the promised brigands did not make their appearance, and we reached Jeres without the slightest accident.

Jeres, like all the small towns of Andalusia, is whitewashed from head to foot, and has nothing remarkable in the way of buildings, save its bodegas, or wine warehouses, immense structures, with tiled roofs and long white walls devoid of windows. The gentleman to whom the letter was addressed was absent, but it produced its desired effect in spite of this circumstance, and we were immediately ushered into the cellars. Never was a more glorious spectacle presented to the gaze of a toper; we walked through alleys of casks, of four or five stories high. We were under the necessity of tasting every wine there, at least all the principal kinds, and there is an infinity of principal kinds. We ran through the whole gamut, from the sherry that was eighty-four years old, dark and thick, having the flavour of Muscat, and the strange colour of the green wine of Béziers, down to the dry, pale straw-coloured sherry, with a flavour of gun-flints, and a resemblance to Sauterne. Between these two extreme notes, there is a whole register of intermediate wines, with tints like burnt topazes or orange peel, and an extreme variety of taste. They are all, however, more or less mixed with brandy, especially those intended for England, where they would not otherwise be found strong enough, for, to please English throats, wine must be disguised as rum.

After so complete a study of the Œnology of Jeres, the difficulty was to regain our carriage with a sufficiently upright and majestic bearing, so as not to compromise France in the eyes of Spain; it was a question of national pride; to fall or not to fall, that was the question on the present occasion, a question which was rather more embarrassing than that which so greatly perplexed the Prince of Denmark. I must say, however, with a degree of very legitimate self-approbation, that we walked to our calessin in a very satisfactory state of perpendicularity, and represented our well-beloved country with great glory in this struggle with the most heady wine of Spain. Thanks to the rapid evaporation produced by a heat of thirty-eight or forty degrees, on our return to Puerto, we were perfectly capable of discussing the most delicate points of psychology, and duly appreciating the various incidents of the bull-fight. Most of the bulls were embalados, that is to say, they had balls at the ends of their horns; two only were killed, but we were highly amused by a variety of burlesque episodes with which the proceedings were enlivened. The picadores, who were dressed like Turks at a masquerade, with Mameluke trousers of cambric muslin, and large suns on the back of their jackets, reminded us most forcibly of those outrageous Moors whom Goya represents with three or four strokes of the graver in his plates of the Toromaquia. One of these worthies, while waiting for his turn to attack the bull, blew his nose in the end of his turban with the most admirable philosophy and coolness. A barco de vapor, made of wickerwork, covered with cloth, and manned by a crew of asses, decorated with red braces, and wearing, somehow or other, cocked hats on their heads, was pushed into the middle of the arena. The bull rushed at this machine, goring, overturning, and throwing the poor donkeys into the air in the most comical manner imaginable. I also saw a picador kill a bull at one thrust of his lance, in the handle of which some fireworks were concealed, that exploded with such violence that the bull, the horse and its rider fell down all together, – the first because he was dead, and the two others from the force of the recoil. The matador was an old rascal, dressed in a seedy, worn-out jacket, and yellow silk stockings, with rather too much open work about them, and looked like a Jeannot of the Opéra Comique, or a street tumbler. He was several times overthrown by the bull, the thrusts of his lance being so feeble and uncertain that it was at last necessary to have recourse to the media luna in order to put the animal out of his misery. The media luna, as its name indicates, is a kind of crescent, fitted on a handle, and very like a pruning hook. It is used for houghing the bull, who is then despatched without danger. Nothing is more ignoble and hideous than this; as soon as there is an end to the danger, you feel disgusted, and the combat degenerates into mere butchery. The poor animal crawling about on its haunches, like Hyacinthe at the Théâtre des Variétés, when he plays the Female Dwarf, in that sublime piece of buffoonery, the Saltembanques, is the most melancholy sight it is possible to conceive; and you only desire one thing, and that is, that the bull may still have sufficient strength left to rip up its stupid tormentor with one last butt of its horns.

The special occupation of this miserable wretch, who was only a matador, when not otherwise employed, was eating. He would absorb six or eight dozen hard eggs, a whole sheep or calf, and so on. From his thin appearance, I should say that he did not get work very often. There were a great number of people present; the majos' dresses were rich and numerous; the women, whose characteristics were entirely different from those of the women of Cadiz, wore on their heads, instead of a mantilla, long scarlet shawls, which were admirably adapted to their fine olive faces, almost as dark as those of mulattoes, in which the pearly eyes and the ivory-like teeth stand out with singular brilliancy. These pure lines, and this tawny, golden tint, are marvellously suited for painting; and it is greatly to be regretted that Léopold Robert, that Raphael of peasants, died so young and never travelled through Spain.

Wandering at hazard through the streets, we came out upon the market-place. Night had set in. The shops and stalls were lighted up by lanterns, or lamps suspended from the roof, and formed a charming scene, all spangled and glistening with spots of brilliancy. Watermelons, with their green rind and rosy pulp, cactus figs, some in their prickly shells and others ready skinned, sacks of garbanzos, monster onions, yellow, amber-coloured grapes, that would put to the blush those brought from the Land of Promise, alder wreaths, spices, and other violent products, were heaped up in picturesque confusion. In the small free passages left between the different stalls, country people passed and re-passed, driving their asses before them, as well as women dragging their brats. I noticed one especially. She was remarkably beautiful, with her jet black eyes glistening in her bistre, oval-shaped face, and her hair, that shone like satin or the raven's wing, plastered down on her temples. She walked along with a serious but happy expression, no stockings on her legs, and her charming foot thrust into a satin shoe. This coquetting with the feet is general throughout Andalusia.

The courtyard of our inn, laid out as a patio, was ornamented by a fountain surrounded by shrubs, and inhabited by a whole population of chameleons. Just fancy a pot-bellied sort of lizard, six or seven inches long, or, perhaps, less, with a disproportionately wide mouth, out of which it darts a viscous, whitish tongue, as long as its body, and eyes, like those of a toad, when you chance to tread upon it; these eyes start out of the creature's head; they are enveloped in a membrane, and perfectly independent of each other in their movements, one looking up towards the sky while the other is turned upon the ground. These squinting lizards, who, according to Spaniards, live on air alone, but whom I very distinctly saw eating flies, have the power of changing colour, according to the place they happen to be in. They do not suddenly become scarlet, blue, or green, but, at the expiration of an hour or two, they imbibe the tints of the nearest objects. On a tree, they are a fine green; on anything blue, a slatish grey; and on scarlet, a reddish brown. If they are kept in the shade, they lose their colour, and assume a sort of neutral yellowish white hue. One or two chameleons would produce a fine effect in the laboratory of an alchemist, or a second Doctor Faustus. In Andalusia, it is the custom to hang a piece of rope of a certain length to the ceiling, and place the end between the fore-paws of a chameleon. The animal begins crawling up, until he reaches the roof, on which his paws have no purchase. He then comes down again to the end of the rope, and, rolling his eyes about, measures the distance between him and the ground. After having made his calculations he crawls up the rope again with the most admirable seriousness and gravity, and continues this manœuvre for an indefinite period. When there are two chameleons on the same rope, the sight becomes most transcendentally ridiculous. Spleen itself would die of laughter on seeing the horrible looks of the ugly brutes when they meet. I was exceedingly anxious to provide myself with the means of indulging in this amusement when I returned to France, and accordingly bought a couple of these amiable animals, which I put in a cage. But they caught cold during the passage, and died of disease of the lungs, on our arrival at Porte Vendres. They had dwindled completely away, and their poor little anatomical system peeped out from their shrunken and wrinkled skin.

Some few days later, the announcement of a bull-fight – the last, alas! that I was destined to witness – caused me to return to Jeres. The circus at Jeres is very handsome and very capacious, and is not without a certain monumental appearance. It is built of brick, faced at the sides with stone, which produces a pleasing effect. There was an immense, motley, variegated, ever-moving crowd, and an endless flourishing of fans and handkerchiefs. In the middle of the arena was a stake with a kind of little platform upon the top. On this platform was crouched a monkey, dressed up as a troubadour, making faces and licking his chaps. He was fastened by a tolerably long chain, which allowed him to describe a pretty large circle, of which the stake formed the centre. When the bull entered, the first object that attracted his attention was the monkey upon his perch. A most amusing comedy followed. The furious animal commenced butting violently against the stake, and shook our friend the monkey in a terrible fashion. The latter was in an awful state of alarm, which he expressed by the most irresistibly comic grimaces. Sometimes, being unable to hold on to his plank, although he grasped it with his four paws, he actually fell upon the bull's back, where he stuck with all the energy of despair. The hilarity of the public knew no bounds, and fifteen thousand smiles lighted up all the swarthy faces around. But the comedy was succeeded by a tragedy. A poor negro helper, who was carrying a basket filled with fine earth to sprinkle over the pools of blood, was attacked by the bull, whom he imagined was occupied somewhere else, and thrown up twice into the air. He lay stretched out upon the ground, motionless and lifeless. The chulos came and waved their cloaks before the bull, and drew him off to another part of the arena, in order that the negro's body might be carried away. He passed close to me; two mozos were carrying him by the head and legs. I remarked a singular fact; from black he had become dark blue, which is apparently the tint that negroes assume when they turn pale. This circumstance did not interrupt the proceedings. Nada; es un mozo; "It is nothing, he is only a black;" such was the funeral oration of the poor African. But if the human spectators were indifferent to his death, the case was different with the poor monkey, who threw about his arms, uttered piercing moans, and exerted all his strength to break his chain. Did he look upon the negro as an animal of his own race, a brother monkey who had got on in the world, and who was the only friend worthy of understanding him? However this may be, it is very certain that I never beheld an instance of deeper grief, than that of this monkey bewailing this negro; and the circumstance is the more remarkable, as he had seen the picadores unhorsed and their lives in danger without manifesting the least uneasiness or sympathy. At the same moment, an enormous owl alighted in the middle of the arena. He had come, no doubt, in his character of a bird of night, to carry off this black soul to the ebony paradise of Africans. Out of the eight bulls in this fight, four only were to be killed. The others, after having received half-a-dozen thrusts with the lance, and three or four pairs of banderillas, were conducted back again into the toril by large oxen with bells on their necks. The last one, a novillo, was abandoned to the spectators, who tumultuously invaded the arena, and despatched him with their knives, for so great is the passion of the Andalusians for bull-fights, that they are not contented with being mere spectators; they require to take a part in the fight, without which they would retire unsatisfied.

The steamer the Ocean, was lying in the harbour, ready to start; the bad weather, that superb bad weather which I have already mentioned, had detained her for some days; we went on board her, with a lively feeling of satisfaction, for in consequence of the events in Valencia, and the troubles which ensued, Cadiz was, after a fashion, in a state of siege. The papers were no longer filled with anything, save pieces of poetry or feuilletons translated from the French, and on the corners of all the streets were posted rather uncomfortable little bandos, prohibiting all groups of more than three persons, under pain of death. Besides these reasons for wishing to leave as soon as possible, we had been travelling forwards with our backs turned on France for a long time; it was the first time for many months that we had made a step towards our native land, and, however free a man may be from national prejudices, he cannot help feeling a slight longing to behold his country once more, when he is so far away. In Spain, the least disrespectful allusion to France made me furious, and I felt inclined to sing of laurels, victory, glory, and warriors, like a supernumerary of the Cirque-Olympique.

Every one was on deck, running about in all directions, and making all sorts of signs of adieu, to the boats that were shoving off to return to shore. Hardly had we gone a league when I heard on all sides such exclamations as, "Me mareo! I feel ill! some lemons; some rum; some vinegar; some smelling salts." The deck offered a most melancholy spectacle. The women, who but a short time previously had looked so lovely, were as green as bodies that had been immersed in the water for a week. They lay about on mattresses, boxes, and counterpanes, with a total forgetfulness of grace or modesty. A poor parrot, which was taken ill in its cage, and could not at all comprehend the agony it was suffering, poured forth its vocabulary with the most mournful and comic volubility. I was lucky enough not to be ill. The two days I had passed on board the Voltigeur had no doubt hardened me. My companion, who was less fortunate than myself, plunged into the interior of the vessel, and did not reappear until we reached Gibraltar. How is it that modern science, which displays so much solicitude for rabbits who have got a cold in the head, and finds delight in dying duck's bones red, has not yet endeavoured to discover some remedy against this feeling of horrible uneasiness, which causes more suffering than actual acute pain?

The sea was still rather rough, although the weather was magnificent; the air was so transparent that we could distinguish with tolerable distinctness the coast of Africa, Cape Spartel, and the bay at the bottom of which Tangiers is situated. That band of mountains resembling clouds, from which they differed only by their immovability, was then Africa, the land of prodigies, of which the Romans used to say, quid novi fert Africa? the oldest continent in the world, the cradle of Eastern civilization, the centre of Islamism, the black world, where the shade which is absent from the sky is only found on the faces of the people, the mysterious laboratory of Nature, who, in her endeavours to bring forth man, first changes the monkey into a negro! What a refined and modern instance of the punishment of Tantalus was it merely to see Africa, and be obliged to pass on.

Opposite Tarifa, a little town whose chalky walls rise on the summit of a precipitous hill, behind a small island of the same name, Europe and Africa approach nearer, and seem desirous to kiss each other in token of alliance. The straits are so narrow that you see both continents at the same time. It is impossible, when you are here, not to believe that the Mediterranean was, at no very remote epoch, an isolated sea, an inland lake, like the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea. The spectacle before us was one of marvellous magnificence. To the left was Europe, and to the right Africa, with their rocky coasts, clothed by distance in light lilac and shot-coloured tints, like those of a double-woofed cloth; before us was the boundless horizon, continually increasing; above us, the turquoise-coloured sky; and below, a sea of sapphire so limpid that we could distinguish the whole hull of our vessel, as well as the keels of the smaller craft which passed near us, and which appeared rather to be flying in the air, than floating in the water. All around us was one mass of light, the only sombre tint perceptible for twenty leagues in every direction, being the long wreaths of thick smoke which we left behind us. The steamer is truly a northern invention; its fires, which are always fiercely glowing, its boiler in a state of constant ebullition, its chimney which will eventually blacken the sky with its soot, are in admirable keeping with the fogs and mists of the north. Amidst the splendid scenery of the south, however, it is a blot. All nature was gay; large sea-birds grazed the surface of the waves with the tips of their pinions; tunny-fish, doradoes, and fish of every other description, all glittering, shining, and sparkling, leaped up and performed a thousand quaint antics as they sported on the top of the water; sail succeeded sail every moment, as white and swelling as the bosom of a Nereid would be, could we see her rise above the billows. The coasts were tinged with all kinds of fantastic hues; their folds, precipices, and gaps produced the most marvellous and unexpected effects in the sunshine, and formed a panorama that was incessantly changing. About four o'clock we were in sight of Gibraltar, waiting for the health officers to be kind enough to come and take our papers with a pair of tongs, and see that we had not brought in our pockets some yellow fever, blue cholera, or black plague.

The aspect of Gibraltar completely confuses all your ideas: you no longer know where you are, nor what you see. Just fancy an immense rock, or, rather, a mountain, fifteen hundred feet high, rising suddenly and bluffly from the midst of the waves, and based on a tract of ground so flat and level that you can scarcely perceive it. Nothing prepares you for it, nothing accounts for its being there; it is connected with no chain of mountains; but it is a monstrous monolith thrown down from heaven, the corner of some planet broken off during a battle of the stars – a fragment of some broken world. Who placed it in this position? God and Eternity alone know. What adds still more to the singular effect of this inexplicable rock is its form. It looks like an enormous, prodigious, and gigantic Sphinx, such as Titans might have sculptured, and compared to which, the flat-nosed monsters of Carnac and Giseh are but what a mouse is in comparison with an elephant. The outspread paws form what is called Europa Point; the head, which is somewhat truncated, is turned towards Africa, which it seems to look at with profound and dreamy attention. What thoughts can this mountain be revolving in its mind, in this sly meditative attitude? What enigma is it about to propose, or endeavouring to solve? The shoulders, loins, and hind-quarters stretch towards Spain in nonchalant folds and beautifully undulating lines, like those of a lion in a state of repose. The town is situated at the bottom of the rock, and is almost imperceptible, being a wretched detail lost in the general mass. The three-deckers at anchor in the bay look like German toys – little miniature models of ships, such as are sold in seaport towns – and the smaller craft seem to be flies drowning in milk; even the fortifications are not apparent. The mountain, however, is hollowed out, mined and excavated in every direction; its belly is full of cannons, howitzers, and mortars; it is absolutely crammed with warlike stores. It is an example of the luxury and coquetry of the Impregnables. But all this offers nothing to the eye, save a few almost imperceptible lines, which are confounded with the wrinkles on the face of the rock, and a few holes through which pieces of artillery furtively thrust their brazen mouths. In the Middle Ages, Gibraltar would have bristled with donjons, towers, turrets, and battlements; instead of taking up its position below, the fortress would have scaled the mountain, and perched itself, like an eagle's nest, upon the highest peak. The present batteries sweep the sea, which is so narrow in this part, and render it almost impossible for a vessel to force a passage. Gibraltar was called by the Arabs, Giblaltah, – that is to say, the Mountain of the Entrance; and never was a name more appropriate. Its ancient name was Calpe. Abyla, now Ape's Hill, is on the other side of the straits in Africa, close to Ceuta, a Spanish possession, the Brest and Toulon of the Peninsula; it is there that the Spaniards send their most hardened galley-slaves. We could distinctly make out its rocky precipices, and its crest enveloped in clouds, despite the serenity of the surrounding sky.

Like Cadiz, Gibraltar, situated on a peninsula at the entrance of a gulf, is only connected with the continent by a narrow strip of land called the Neutral Ground, where the custom-house lines are established. The first Spanish possession on this side is San Roque. Algeciras, whose white houses glisten in the universal azure, like the silvery stomach of a fish floating on the surface of the water, is exactly opposite Gibraltar; in the midst of this splendid blue, Algeciras was having its little revolution. We heard indistinctly the popping report of fire-arms, like the noise made by grains of salt when thrown into the fire. The ayuntamiento even took refuge on board the steamer, and began smoking cigars in the most tranquil manner in the world.