Spain

Contents

CHAP. P/GB

I BARCELONA I

II SARAGOSSA 30

Chapter I. Barcelona

IT was a rainy morning in February, an hour before sunrise, when my mother accompanied me as far as the staircase, repeating hurriedly all the counsels she had been giving me for a month ; then throwing her arms around my neck, she burst into tears and disappeared. I stood for a moment looking at the door through which she had passed, almost ready to exclaim : " Open the door ! I am not going away ! I will stay with you ! " Then I rushed down the stairs as if I were a burelar who was being pursued. When I reached the street, it seemed as if between my home and me were already stretched the waves of the sea and the heights of the Pyrenees. Yet although I had been feverishly looking forward to that day for some time, I was not at all happy. At the corner of a street, on his way to the hospital, I met a medical friend of mine whom I had not seen for more than a month, and who asked :

" Where are you going ? "

" To Spain," I replied. But he could hardly believe my statement, so little did my gloomy frowning face seem to announce a pleasure trip. All along the road from Turin to Genoa, I thought only of my mother, my empty room, my little library, and of the dear habits of my home life, to all of which I was saying farewell for many months.

But on arriving at Genoa, the sight of the sea, the gardens of the Acqua Sola and the company of Anton Giulio Barili restored my usual calmness and gaiety. I rem^ember that while I was preparing to get into the boat which was to take me to the steamer, a porter from the hotel handed me a letter containing only these words :

" Sad news from Spain. The situation of an Italian at Madrid, at the time of a struggle against the king, would be dangerous. Do you persist in going } Think well of it ! "

I sprang into the boat and away we went. Just before the departure of the steamer, two officers came to say good-bye. I seem to see them yet as they stood up in the boat, when the ship had begun to move.

" Bring me a sword from Toledo ! " they cried.

" Brinor rne a bottle of Xeres ! "

" Brine me a oruitar ! an Andalusian hat ! a dasfger ! "

Shortly after this I could only see their white handkerchiefs and hear their last shouts ; I tried to reply, but my voice choked ; I began to laugh and passed my hand across my eyes. In a short time I retired to my den, fell into a delicious sleep, and dreamed of my mother's counsels, my pocket-book, France and Andalusia. At daybreak I sprang up and went on deck. We were at a short distance from the shore — it was the French coast, the first

Strip of foreign land I had seen ; it is curious, I could not gaze at it enough ; a thousand vague thoughts passed through my mind and I said :

" Is it France, really France, and am I actually here ? "

At noon we began to see Marseilles. The first sight of a large maritime city produces a sort of bewilderment which destroys the pleasure of surprise. I see, as if through a mist, an immense forest of ships ; a boatman who stretches out his hand to me, addressing me in some incomprehensible jargon ; a custom-house guard who makes me pay, in virtue of I know not what law, deux sous pour les Prti^ssiens ; then a dark hotel room ; then long, long streets, immense squares, a coming and going of people and carriages, troops of Zouaves, unknown military uniforms, thousands of lights and voices, and at last a weariness and profound melancholy which ends in a painful dream. The following morning at daybreak I was in a carriage of the railway which runs from Marseilles to Perpignan, with ten officers of the Zouaves, who had arrived the day before from Africa ; some with crutches, some with canes, and others with their arms in slings, but all as gay and noisy as so many school-boys. The journey was a long one, so it was necessary to try and start a conversation ; yet taking into consideration all that I had heard of the ill feeling existing between the French and ourselves, I dared not open my mouth. What nonsense it was ! One of the gentlemen addressed me and we beg-an talking.

" Are you Italian ? "

" Yes."

The result of my answer was delightful. All, with one exception, had fought in Italy, and one had been wounded at Magenta. They began recounting' anecdotes of Genoa, Turin, Milan, asking me about a thousand things, and describing the hfe they lead in Africa. One began on the pope. " Aha! " I said to myself, but he went further than I, for he said that we ought to have trancher le nceud de la question, and gone to the bottom of the matter without o-iving any thought to the peasantry. Meanwhile, as we approached the Pyrenees, I amused myself by observing the progressive change in the pronunciation of the travellers who entered the carriage, and in noting how the French language died, if I may so express myself, into the Spanish tongue, to feel the approach of Spain ; until reaching Perpignan and rushing into a diligence, I heard the first bitenos dias and biceji vidje, so distinct and sonorous that they gave me infinite pleasure. At Perpignan, however, Spanish is not spoken, but the people use a wretched dialect, a mixture of French, Marseillese and Catalan, which is distressing to the ear. The diligence landed me at a hotel among a crowd of officers, ladies, Englishmen and trunks. A waiter forced me to sit down at a table, where I ate something. I was half strangled, hurried into another diligence, and away we went.

Alas ! I had dreamed for so long a time of the crossing of the Pyrenees, and I was obliged to make the passage by night. Before we had reached the foot of the first mountains it was perfectly dark.

Through long, long hours, between sleeping and waking, I saw nothing but a little of the road lighted by the lanterns of the diligence, the dark profile of some mountain, a projecting rock which I could have touched by stretching my hand out of the window ; and I heard nothing save the measured tread of the horses, and the whistling of a dreadful wind, which never ceased blowing for a moment.

Beside me sat a young American, the most original creature in the world, who slept for I know not how many hours with his head resting on my shoulder, who waked from time to time to exclaim : "■Ah quelle nuit ! Quelle horrible ntiit / " without becoming aware of the fact that with his head he gave me quite another reason for making the same lament. At the station we both got out and entered a small tavern for a little glass of liquor. He — the American — asked me if I were travelling on business.

" No, sir," I replied. " I am travelling for pleasure ; and you, if 1 may be permitted to ask? "

" I," he replied with the utmost gravity, " am travelling for love." „

" For love } " I

" For love," and then he proceeded, unasked, to relate to me a long story of a love affair which had been broken off, a marriage which had fallen through, abductions, duels, and I know not what beside, concluding his narrative with the assertion that he was travelling for distraction of mind and to forget the beloved one. And, in truth, he did endeavor to distract himself as much as possible, for at every inn we entered, from the first one to that in Gerona, he did nothing but teaze the maids ; with perfect gravity, it must be confessed, but also with an audacity which even the desire for distraction could hardly justify.

At three o'clock in the mornino- we reached the frontier. Estamos en Espana, cried a voice ; the diligence stopped, the American and I jumped out again, and Avalked with much curiosity into a little

O SPAIiV.

tavern to see the first sons of Spain between the walls of their own house. We found a half dozen custom-house officers, the host, his wife and children, seated around a brazier. They addressed us instantly. I asked many questions, to which they replied in a lively and ingenuous manner, which I had not expected to find in the Catalans, depicted in geographical dictionaries as a hard people of few words. We asked if there was anything to eat, and they brought us a famous Spanish chorizo, a species of sausage stuffed with pepper, which burned the stomach, a bottle of sweet wine and a little hard bread.

"Well, what is your king doing?" I asked one of the custom-house officers after having rejected the first mouthfuls. The one whom I addressed appeared a trifie embarassed, looked at me, then at the others, and finally gave me this very curious answer :

" Esta reinandor (He is reigning.)

All began laughing, and while I was preparing a more leading question I heard some one whisper in my ear :

''Es nil rcpiiblicanQk'

I turned and saw the proprietor of the inn lookinof at the ceilino-.

" I understand," I said, and immediately changed the subject. Upon reentering the diligence my companion and I laughed heartily at the innkeeper's warning, both of us being astonished that the political opinions of custom-house officials should be taken so seriously by a person of that class ; but in taverns we entered afterward we heard quite a different story. In all of them the proprietor or some adventurer was to be found reading the newspaper, surrounded by a group of listening peasants. From time to time the reading was interrupted, and some political discussion arose, which I could not understand, as they were speaking Catalan, but the gist of which I could gather, however, by the aid of the newspaper which I had heard read. Well, I must say that in all those circles there breathed a republican spirit which would have made the flesh of the most intrepid follower of Amadeus creep.

One among the others — a huge man with a fierce brow and deep voice — after having talked for some time to a group of silent listeners, turned toward me, whom he had mistaken, from my incorrect Castilian pronunciation, for a Frenchman, and said with much solemnity :

" I will tell you one thing, cabellero !"

" What is it?"

" I tell you that Spain is more unfortunate than France," having said which he began pacing the room with his head bowed and his arms crossed over his breast. I heard others speak confusedly of Cortes, ministers, ambitions, betrayals, and other terrible things. One single person, a girl at the eating-house in Figueras, knowing that I was Italian, said to me smiling : " Now we have an Italian king," and shortly thereafter, as we were going away, she added with graceful simplicity : " He pleases me !"

It was still night when we reached Gerona, where King Amadeus, received, as it is said, with much enthusiasm, placed a stone in the house occupied by General Alvarez during the celebrated siege of 1809. We crossed the city which seemed to us immense, sleepy as we were, and impatient to throw ourselves down for a nap in a railway carriage, and finally arrived at the station, leaving for Barcelona at daybreak.

SPAIN.

Sleep ! It was the first time I had seen the sun rise in Spain : how could I sleep ? I placed myself at a window and never withdrew my head until we reached Barcelona. Ah ! no pleasure can compare with that which one experiences in entering an unknown country, with the imagination prepared for the sight of new and charming things, with a thousand recollections of fanciful readings in one's head, and without any anxieties or cares. To advance into that country, to glance eagerly on every side in search of something that will make you comprehend, if you do not know it, that you are really here ; to recognize the fact, little by little, here in the dress of a peasant, there in a plant, farther on in a house ; to see as one proceeds along the route these signs, colors and forms multiply, and to compare everything with the idea one had formed of it ; to find a satisfaction for one's curiosity in everything upon which the eye falls, or which reaches the ear ; in the faces of the people, in their gestures, accents and conversations ; to give vent to an exclamation of surprise at every step ; to feel that one's mind is expanding and becoming clearer ; to desire together with the hope of a speedy arrival, never to arrive at all, striving to see everything, asking a thousand questions of one's neighbors, making a sketch of a village, arranging a group of peasants, and saying a dozen times in the hour : " Here I am !" and thinking that one of these days you will tell of everything, — this is indeed the greatest and most varied of human enjoyments. The American was snoring.

The portion of Catalonia through which one passes in going from Gerona to Barcelona is varied, fertile, and admirably cultivated. It is a succession of little valleys, surrounded by hills of graceful form, with thick groves, torrents, chasms, and ancient castles ; with everywhere a healthful and luxurious vegetation, and a vivid green reminding one of the severe aspect of the valleys of the Alps. The landscape is embellished by the picturesque costume of the peasants,, which corresponds admirably with the proud character of the Catalan.

The first whom I saw were dressed from head to foot in black velvet, wearing around their necks a species of white- and red-striped shawl, on their heads a little zouave cap which was very red and fell over the shoulders ; some of them had a pair of kid-gaiters laced up to the knees ; others a pair of linen shoes, made like slippers, with a corded sole, open in front, and bound around the foot with crossed black ribbons. A dress, in fact, easy and elegant, yet at the same time severe in style. It was not very cold ; still all were enveloped in their shawls, so that only the end of the nose and the point of the cigarrito were visible ; and they looked like gentlemen who were coming out of a theatre. Not alone on account of the shawl, but from the way in which it was worn, falling on one side, and arranged in a manner that made it appear as if quite carelessly done, and with those folds and those turns which give it the grace of a mantilla and the majesty of a cloak. At every railway station tjiere were several of them, each one with a shawl of a different color, not a few of tliem dressed in fine, clean clothes, almost all very neat, and posed in such dignified attitudes that the effect of their picturesque costume was heightened thereby. Among them were a few dark faces ; the majority, however, were white, the eyes dark and vivacious, but without the fire and mobility of the Andalusian glances.

lO SFAIA\

Little by little, as we proceed, the villages, houses, bridges and aqueducts multiply, and all things which announce the vicinity of a rich and populous commercial city. Granollers, St. Andrea di Palomar, Clot, are surrounded by workshops, villas and gardens. All alonof the route one sees lonsf rows of carts, troops of peasants, and herds. The stations are filled with people ; any one not knowing better would think he was crossing one of the provinces of England rather than one in Spain. After passing the station of Clot, which is the last before reaching Barcelona, one sees on every side large brick buildings, long boundary walls, piles of building materials, smoking towers, factories and workmen, and one hears, or seems to hear, a dull, diffused, increasing sound, which is like the labored breath of a great city that is moving and working. In fine, one takes in at a single glance all Barcelona, the port, the sea, a wreath of hills, and everything shows itself and disappears in an instant, and you find yourself under the roof of the railway station, with your blood in a ferment and your head in confusion.

An omnibus, as large as a railway carriage, carried me to the nearest hotel, in which, as I entered, I heard Italian spoken. I confess that I experienced as much pleasure at the sound of my native tongue, as if I had found myself after a year of travel at an interminable distance from Italy. It was, however, a pleasure of short duration. A waiter, the one whom I had heard speaking, accompanied me to my room, and becoming aware by my smile that I v/as one of his compatriots, asked me with charming grace :

" Do you finish from arriving? "

BARCELONA. II

" Finish from arriving ? " I asked, in turn, opening wide my eyes with astonishment.

It is best to make a note of the fact here, that in Spanish the word acabar (to finish doing a thing) corresponds with the French expression — venir de Igufaire.

This accounts for my not understanding what the man wished to say.

" Yes," repHed the waiter, " I ask if the cabellero has just descended this very hour from the iron road ? "

"This very hour! iron road! but what kind of Italian do you speak, my friend '^. "

He was sHghtly disconcerted, but I afterward learned that at Barcelona there are a ereat number of hotel waiters, cafe employes, cooks, and servants of every description who are Piedmontese, the majority of them from Navarre, who went to Spain as boys and who speak that horrible jargon, a mixture of French, Italian, Castilian, Catalan and Piedmontese, not with the Spanish, be it understood, because they have all learned the Spanish, but with Italian travellers, in this way, for amusement, just to show that they have not forgotten their native tongue. So that I heard many Catalans say : " Ah, there is very little difference between your language and ours ! " I should think so ! They might also add what a Castilian chorister said to me, in a tone of benevolent superiority, on board the boat that took me five months later to Marseilles: "The Italian language is the most beautiful of the dialects which have been formed from ours ! "

Scarcely had I rid myself of the traces of the '' liorT'ible miW which the crossing of the Pyrenees had left upon me, before I dashed out of the hotel and began roaming about the streets. Barcelona is, in appearance, the least- Spanish city of Spain. There are large buildings, of which few are old, long streets, regular squares, shops, theatres, great superb cafes, and a continuous coming and going of people, carriages and carts from the shores of the sea to the heart of the city, and from here to the distant quarters, as at Genoa, Naples and Marseilles. A broad, straight street called the Rambla, shaded by two rows of trees, crosses nearly the entire city from the harbor up. A spacious promenade, lined with new houses, extends along the sea-shore, on a high-walled dyke, in the shape of a terrace, against w^hich the waves dash ; an immense suburb, almost a new city, stretches along the north, and on every side new houses break the old boundary lines, are scattered over the fields, on the hillsides, and extend in interminable lines as far as the neighboring villages. On all the surrounding heights, rise villas, little palaces, and factories, which dispute the ground, jostle each other, appearing one behind the other until they form a great wreath around the city. On every side there is manufacturing, transforming and renovating. The people work and prosper, and Barcelona flourishes.

It was during the last days of the Carnival. The streets were traversed by long processions of giants, devils, princes. Moors, warriors, and a troop of certain figures, which I had the misfortune to meet everywhere, who were dressed in yellow, with along cane in their hands, at the top of which was tied a purse that they poked under everyone's nose, into all the shops, windows, even up to the balconies of the first floors of the houses, asking for alms in the name of I know not whom, but destined, probably, for some classical revel on the last night of the Carnival. The most curious thing- which I saw was the masquerade of the children. It is the custom to dress the boys under eight, some as men, in the French style, in complete evening dress, with Avhite eloves, 8freat mustaches and lono- hair ; some as grandees of Spain, covered with ribbons and trinkets ; others as Catalan peasants, with cap and mantle ; the girls as court ladies, amazons, poetesses, with the lyre and crown of laurel : and both, too, in the costumes of the various provinces of the state ; some as flower-girls of Valencia, some as Andalusian gypsies, others as Basque mountaineers, altogether the oddest and most picturesque dresses that can be imagined ; and the parents lead them by the hand on the promenade, so that it is like a rivalry of good taste, phantasy and luxury, in which the people take part with the greatest delight.

While I was seeking the street which would lead me to the cathedral, I met a troop of Spanish soldiers. I stopped to look at them, comparing them with the picture which Baretti draws of them when he talks of their assault upon him in the hotel, one taking the salad off his plate, and another dragging the side bone of a fowl from his mouth. One must confess that from that time to the present they are much changed. At first sight, one would take them for French soldiers, as they, too, wear the red trousers, and a gray jacket which falls to the knee. The only notable difference is the head covering. The Spaniards wear a cap of a particular pattern, crushed at the back, curved in front, and furnished with a vizor which folds over the forehead. This cap is made of gray cloth, and is hard, light and graceful, bearing the name of its inventor, Ros de

Olano, general and poet, who modeled it after his own hunting hat. The majority of the soldiers w^iom I saw, all of the infantry, were young, short of stature, dark, quick and clean, as one is accustomed to imagine the soldiers of an army which formerly possessed the lightest and most vigorous infantry of Europe. Even to-day the Spanish infantry has the reputation of being the most indefatigable walkers and most rapid runners ; they are grave, proud, and full of a national pride, of which it is impossible to form an adequate idea without having seen them near to. The officers wear a short, black coat, like those of the Italian officers, which, when off duty, they generally throw open, thereby displaying a vest buttoned to the throat. In their-leisure hours they never carry their swords ; during the marches, like the soldiers, they wear a pair of black cloth gaiters, which nearly reach the knee. A regiment of infantry, in complete equipment of war, presents a sight both graceful and warlike.

The cathedral of Barcelona, in the Gothic style, surmounted by bold towers, is worthy of a place by the most beautiful of Spain. The interior is formed by three vast naves, divided b}^ two rows of very high pilasters, slender and graceful in form ; the choir, placed in the centre of the church, is ornamented by a profusion of bassi-relievi, filagrees and figures ; under the sanctuary is a subterranean chapel, always lighted, in the centre of which is the tomb of Saint Eulalia, which can be seen through several little windows opening around the sanctuary. Tradition relates that the murderers of the saint (who was very beautiful) wished to see her nude form before crivinof her the death blow ; but while they were removing the last veil, a thick mist covered her and hid her completely from view. Her body is still intact and as fresh as during life, and there is no human eye which can bear the sight of it ; once, an incautious bishop, who; at the end of the last century, wished to uncover the tomb and see the sacred remains, became blind while in the act of looking at them. In a little chapel on the right of the high altar, lighted by many little jets, one sees a Christ on the cross, in colored wood, leaning a trifle to one side. It is said that this Christ was on a Spanish ship at the battle of Lep.anto, and that it was bent in this manner in trying to avoid a cannon ball, which it saw coming straight toward its heart. From the roof of the same chapel is suspended a little galley, with all its oars, built in imitation of that upon which Don John of Austria fought against the Turks. Under the organ, in Gothic style, covered with tapestry, hangs an enormous Saracen's head, with open mouth, from which, in ancient times, sweetmeats rained down for children. In the other chapels there are a beautiful marble tomb, and some praiseworthy paintings of Villadomat, a Barcelonian painter of the seventeenth century. The church is dark and mysterious. A cloister rises beside it, upheld by superb pilasters formed of slender columns and surmounted by capitals overloaded with statuettes, which represent scenes from the Old and New Testaments. In the cloister, in the church, in the litde square which stretches out before them, in the small streets that run around them, is an air of melancholy peace, which attracts and saddens one like the garden of a cemetery. A group of horrible bearded old women guard the door.

In the city, after visiting the cathedral, no other great monuments of interest remain to be seen. In the Square of the Constitution are two palaces called Casa de la Deputacion and Casa ConcistoriaL the first of the sixteenth centur}-, the other of the fourteenth, which still retain some portions Avorthy of note, the one a court, the other a door. On one side of the Casa dc la Dep2Ltacion there is a rich Gothic facade of the Chapel of St. George. There is a palace of the Inquisition, with a dismal court, and little windows with heavy bars, and secret doors ; but this is nearly all restored in old style. There still remain several enormous Roman columns, in the Street of Paradise, which are lost in the midst of modern houses, surrounded by tortuous staircases and dark rooms. There is nothing else which could claim the attention of an artist. In compensation for this, there are fountains with rostral columns, pyramids, statues ; boulevards lined with villas, gardens, cafes, hotels ; a bull circus capable of holding ten thousand spectators ; a suburb which extends along a promontory that shuts in the harbor, built with the symmetry of a chess-board, and inhabited by ten thousand sailors ; many libraries ; a very rich museum of natural history, and a building containing archives, which is one of the largest depositories of historical documents from the ninth century to the present day. that is to say, from the first Counts of Catalonia to the War of the Independence.

Outside the city one of the most notable things is the cemetery, a half hour's drive from the gates, situated in the centre of a vast plain. Seen from the exterior, on the side of the entrance, it looks like a garden, and makes one hasten his steps with an almost cheerful feeling of curiosity. But scarcely has one crossed the portal ere he stands before a novel

BARCELONA. \y

and indescribable spectacle, quite different from that for which he was prepared. The stranger finds himself in the midst of a silent city, traversed by long, deserted streets, flanked by straight walls of equal height, shut in at the end by other walls. He goes on and reaches a cross-road, and beyond he sees streets, other walls and other distant cross-roads. It seems like being in Pompeii. The dead are placed' in the walls, lengthwise, arranged in different rows, like the books in a library. For every casket there is a corresponding species of niche in the wall, in which is written the name of the person buried ; where no one is buried, the niche bears the written word, Propriedad, which signifies that the place has been purchased. The majority of the niches are enclosed by glass, others by gratings, some by a fine wire netting, and contain a great variety of objects, placed there in honor of the dead by their respective families, such as photographs, little altars, pictures, embroideries, artificial flowers, and, not infrequently, trifles which were dear to them in life, ribbons, necklaces, children's playthings, books, pins and small pictures, — a thousand things that recall home and the family, and indicate the profession of those to whom they belonged ; so that one cannot look at them without a feeling of tenderness. From time to time one sees one of these niches empty and all dark within — a sign that a casket is to be placed there during the day. The family of the dead are obliged to pay a certain sum yearly for that space. When they cease to pay, the casket is removed and carried to the common ditch of the cemetery for the poor, which is reached by another street. While I was there, a burial took place ; I saw them in the distance placing the ladder and raising the coffin, so I passed lo SPAIN.