Quiet days in Spain

Preface

ON taking my departure after telling some true but adventurous stories to a family of eager children, a little girl said to her mother, ^' Wouldn't it be lovely if what he said were true ! "

I am reminded of this remark as I write a preface, but I offer no excuse for the appearance of this book. It made itself ; it is a faithful tale, and should it here and there read like fiction — well, so much the better.

During portions of 1908-9 I wandered over forty-two of the forty-nine provinces of Spain — I had previously made acquaintance with many of them — ^involving more than seven thousand miles of land travel, and taking pot-luck with all sorts of people. It would be odd had I not come by a few interesting facts. These I have endeavoured to set down ; not always in the exact order in which they presented themselves, but ever with the desire to do justice to the Spaniard, his life, his country, and my own mood. The first chapter, in some way introductory, will prepare the reader for what is to follow ; but in the absence of any detailed expression of vi PREFACE

opinion on Spain as a nation a few words may be included here.

Poverty is the most painful and haunting fact of Spain.

Millions of her people go hungry throughout their lives. Gaudy pomp, reHgious ceremony, debasing superstition, the brags of life and hopeless, comfortless poverty are almost everywhere jumbled. Great cities live on little churches, and great churches live on little towns. All Spain is odd, and it never can be even. Then who is to blame ? The modern Spaniard is blamed for his laziness. Outsiders point to what the Romans and Moors did. These were colonists, and plunderers to boot. They brought vast treasures into Spain, and when they settled down to depend on the native store they did no better than the modern Spaniard. There is not a single period in the history of Spain when she was rich or drew decent comfort out of her native store.

No British writer has written more entertainingly of Spain than George Borrow, and no man has created a more erroneous impression. *' The most magnificent country in the world,'* he proclaimed it, which is absurd, and proves that Borrow knew but little about mother-earth. Native life he understood, but even then his imagination and ineradicable habit of exaggeration caused him to place all his subjects in a false light. Spain was great when the world was small. She could produce adventurers by the thousand

PREFACE vii

where she could not raise a score of administrators ; and the characteristic still holds good.

Of the South, the Spaniard looks that way for life. All his dreams are of the East and of the Moorish period in the West. His old romances are based almost entirely on Arabic themes ; his modem stage characters hail from Morocco ; his lover of fiction is under the spell of eyes which have captivated him in Tangier. The Moor is the '' eternal enemy/' and by a strange power of fascination is the most admired as he is the best hated man in the world of the Spaniards.

Some people want and even expect Spain to change and become like the rest of Europe. As if it were possible ! Rather let us be thankful for the distinctiveness of the nations, for this world will be a dull affair if the busybodies ever succeed in making it '' much of a muchness.''

If we are to criticise the Spaniard it is to say that he is not so idle as lacking in administrative qualities. He can often initiate where he cannot grasp and carry through a concern. His poverty has made him afraid, and a number of traits, racial or acquired, leave him incapable of looking on life and its concerns from the standpoint of other European peoples. Nevertheless, he preserves a fine soul. The Spanish countryman is a splendid fellow, as eager, industrious, clean-living and contented as any man on earth when he is given a chance to live decently.

Spaniards are charged with being cruel. Let viii PREFACE

us rather say they are hard. They do not go about looking for the chance to do physical harm to any one. The Spanish mind is not easily understood. If we allow, as we may allow, that the British Isles hold nearly twice the population of Spain, then we may say that so far as ears, eyes, and hearts may realise, we shall easily discover ten times more misery in the British Isles, directly due to cruelty, than the same attention would reveal in Spain. The cruelties inflicted in the world are generally due to ignorance. To cite parallel cases of English and Spanish forms of cruelty would be of little value. Facts have to be accounted for, and we see in the Spaniard some justification for what he does or neglects to do, and we cannot therefore separate a case from its causes, or blame a nation for the inborn defects of its individuals.

Let it be said that the bull-fight is not a true reflex of Spanish character, any more than prizefighting is of the English, and leave it there.

A man never strikes a woman, or at least so rarely that few can tell of witnessing such an act. In the Asturias I once saw a man box his wife^s ears ; and allowing for all the circumstances, I think she thoroughly deserved it.

The Spaniards display a pecuHar indifference to the feehngs of others. I have never seen a weakling championed, or a bad act rebuked ; but this grows out of respect for individual liberty, a kind of consciousness that no one has a

PREFACE ix

right to interfere. The habit of ridicule causes much heart-pain in Spain, and it is the vice of every class. It would be almost impossible to make the best-educated Spaniard see the truth of this statement, as he regards personal criticism as one of the few spices of life. The theatre gives abundant proof of the widespread habit of '' digging '' at any and every one, wherever there is the slightest chance. In their heated abuse the people go beyond the bounds of truth and decency, and the opprobrium heaped upon unquestionably innocent girls by fiery mothers is as painful as it is surprising. The spontaneity of the Spanish character prevents anything like the nursing of a grudge, but the ready thrust is no less trying. My jealous hostess, seeing I admired a beautiful woman, said to me in her presence, ** What do you think of her ? " I could do no less than exclaim, '' She is perfectly lovely ! '' Swift and cold as a dagger came the shaft, '' She has no back teeth ! "

The blight of Spain is in her system of government. Her public men aspire to be dictators, and negative every wholesome desire when it leaves no room for their personal advancement. All decrees are of a suppressive character : press censorship ; no public meeting ; no free education ; no unions or alliances ; no emigration without permit ; no petitions for work nor demonstrations against rapacious authority. With the placing of Government supporters in every position of

X PREFACE

profit, the taxation of every form of labour, product, and enterprise, no more is done than will raise revenue, fill the pockets and increase the boasts of those in office, and add to the mountain of make-believe composing the political and social system of Spain.

As a number of self-governing states owning allegiance to one monarch, Spain might do infinitely better than she does under the present system ; for there is an ineradicable vice in the form of official place-making and political corruption, due largely to the size of the country and the ease with which all offences may be hidden.

As Sancho Panza's grandmother remarked, there are the haves and the have-nots, and all Spain wants to be amongst the haves.

No remedy is in sight, for it is unthinkable that any change can come from within until the Church is virtually suppressed, free institutions are not only tolerated, but supported by the general government, and the bulk of the revenues are spent in developing the provinces wherein they are raised.

As things are, to win is to be in the right ; the average official Spaniard has no higher sense of morality.

Recent Governments have given more and more to the Church and less and less to education. The revolutionary spirit is fostered by a desire to break through the chains of ignorance and stifling superstition which weigh down, sap.

PREFACE xi

and starve the bulk of the nation. Spain is held to Europe solely by the vitalising stream of commercial people from the north, and if it were possible to reorganise and preserve her public departments by an international commission she would soon vastly improve her status and estate. But the governing and the grasping class of Spaniard is opposed to the European ideal and trend. He is the child of Europe, an ignorant, but astute, greedy, and incurably vain child.

E'inally, we should not take Spain seriously, for she is never in earnest, and as a country is not worth foreign intervention. Foreign capital and investments of one kind and another keep her employed, and as the world's playground she may still be reckoned with. So vast and varied, so unknown, she will continue to lure and fascinate, even to alarm. Spain remains the great unrevealed store of the South — a part of Europe, a link with Asia, an offshoot of Africa, she leads us from people to people, from clime to clime. In race, language, and ideal, ever varying, she is one only under the impulse of religious fervour ; a mother land, yet everywhere with the unformed heart of a child ; a remnant of the age of mysticism ; the victim of discredited institutions ; a holder to faith without works ; misled by an Eastern love of gauds, favours, and rewards ; possessed of a fine soul, but savage by reason of the hot blood coursing through her veins. If ever xii PREFACE

a nation was by all the laws of nature and circumstance divided against itself, it must be Spain. Portions of ^' Third Class," '^Seville Fair," '* The Home of Romance," '' A Great Shrine," and various notes used in these pages have already appeared in the Melhoiirne Age. For permission to republish them I must express my grateful thanks to Messrs. David Syme and Co.

C. B. L.

AN INVITATION

Come, ye who would be straying From toil and heart-born care,

Where orange flowers are playing With many a maiden's hair ;

Look where the sun is pointing At noon across the sea.

Up ! for your soul's anointing, And come along with me.

A respite beg or borrow

From worldly strife and strain.

We go where toil's " to-morrow,"

The dreamy land of Spain.

There, idling for a season Along her storied ways,

May we find peace with reason In wealth of quiet days !

jriii

Contents

Preface ....

An Invitation

CHAPTER

CHAPTER I " One's self I sing— a simple separate person."

FROM a personal standpoint this book needs no apology. It is a plain tale of incidents and experiences in different times and places. With much to be thankful for, tribute must be offered to those patronesses of three Spanish shrines who afford special protection and blessing to vagabonds. Here thanks be given to '' Our Lady of the Road " (Leon), to " Our Lady of Health " (Taj ares), and to '' Our Lady of Rags and Tatters " (Rio Negro). To be under the safe guardianship of these three is to make confident holiday. Once I served an apprenticeship in the rural affairs of Spain ; applied the experience then gained to life in a far-off land, where I remained, a hard-worked exile, for fourteen years.

In youth I felt that the best intelligence was shown in the capacity to create work and to increase the world's food-supply, and to this joint task I bent my back and my will. Then I discerned the body to be of little account, and work criminal where it suppresses the demands of the soul. If we did our utmost to develop ourselves there would be less need to depend on others. I came to see men hate me for daring to say that poetry, beauty, and the broad face of the world are the best things to be in love with. I was in disgrace because I did not believe in work without end. For employment, recreation, and sustenance I would exhaust ruins and old cities, country-sides and their populations ; I would gladly feast and as willingly starve with them ; I would know again the unsullied snows and the fight for life on the high mountains, and the splendours of the bursting valleys. These are clean, gratifying things, conducive to pleasant days and peaceful slumbers.

Hearing the call I turned to Spain. It was April, and such an April as the South had not known for years. The winter had been wet and mild ; and all the land was splendid to the eye, though the crop was little more than weeds.

A train made haste to carry me inland by roads and mountains I had trudged in earnest youth. Broad plains of purple bugloss and crimson poppy waved a wild welcome ; a high and wide sky of flaming hues emitting a quickening heat overspread all visible things, and the voice of the South that is as wine rose to quicken and delight my heart. I was at home again, and found reason to be glad. We are all set towards some place or period in time. We understand countries we have neither

BE CALM AND LIVE 3

seen nor studied, where we cannot make head or tail of what is about us. I have always known and loved, even where I could not approve, Spain ; perhaps she appeals because she is the land of to-morrow and holds the gospel of never mind ! So long in chains, I was almost tempted to hurry ; but Spain forbids haste ; nothing shows more folly or vulgarity than striving to get ahead ; so catching the pulse of the country I moved to its time and tune. Years ago I haunted churches, galleries and places of fame ; now I was bent on more homely fare. Neither art nor history should claim much of my time. I desired to estimate Spain's native resources and to live with and know more of the everyday life of her people. As a matter of fact, I wished that some of the men and industries of Spain might find a home in and aid the development of a far-distant land ; and to this extent my wanderings had a practical side.

Returning after an absence of many years, I see — more in architecture ; less in painting ; more in streets and windows than in domestic interiors ; more in the few splendid, than in the many poverty-stricken, regions ; more in the peasants than in those who form the town populations ; and far more in the philosophic than in the actual concerns of Spain as a nation.

It would be odd if this work, compiled from notes made in almost every part of the vast country, did not reveal some contradictions, for

Spain is full of them. The aim has been to write provincially — to put the local fact on its ground. The references to Spain's natural resources, political and social conditions, have been compiled with every desire to do justice to the Spanish people and to inform the reader. Some important provinces and phases of Spanish life are not dealt with because they were included in the previous book, '' A Vagabond in Spain.'*

A critic has said '' A traveller should make light of his troubles." Had the same critic been for long alone he might have known that an isolated man is besieged by a passion to explain himself. The world is in no haste to read books of facts ; and seldom gets to know what a man's thoughts turn to, and how he is sustained when left to himself. He spends much of his time in looking backwards, and away at the distances ; for if he did not so he could make no comparisons ; everything that was, becomes exaggerated, dwarfed, or altered, is more drab or highly coloured. Then the manner and the time of his thoughts change — he may not be a busy Briton in a lotus land ; but instead, falls into the leisurely seductive mood begotten in the idle ways of quiet places. Wherever possible I have offered the sum of Spain's merriment to the reader ; but as Spain is not always and everywhere merry, there must be a sombre story and a little sermonising now and then.

After Seville one is glad to escape to the quiet of Cordova. I came there for the third time, but

SOME SPLENDID MEMORIES 5

it is so old and full of interest as to be ever new and unknown. A little girl wrote to me there, '' I hope Poste Restante is a nice place, and that you are very comfortable." That was a good beginning. Once a tinsmith took an English sovereign from me ; and on my return met me at the railway station with the gold piece hanging from his watch-chain and the welcome words, '' Amigo — I am. rejoiced to see you." It was an accident that we met ; but as he embraced me he held out the gold ornament, and smiled, '' I have always worn this in memory of you ! " He was painfully cross-eyed ; but he knew his way about Cordova, and I am indebted to him for many little discoveries and pleasant hours.

At the Fonda I was again welcomed by a fat, bow-legged, mutton-chopped waiter, who grabbed my hand and shook it heartily, saying with a broad beam of sunshine in his face, " I'm overjoyed to see you back again." I felt he was humbugging me ; but it took him little time to convince me that he really remembered me. The awkward part of this was that three or four other waiters were brought along, and I was introduced as an old friend of the house ! Later, I got into trouble for not holding a friendly intercourse with all these men before or after every meal. It can be nothing short of vulgar, nay, worse, it is bestial, '' animal," as they say, not to see or speak familiarly with every one met. This is a nice trait, but it means a lot of useless effort.

Cordova is the sleepiest town in Spain, but for a few days I was kept busy, shaking hands and drinking cafe with those whom I had never hitherto spoken to but who '' remembered seeing me before ! " I went into a shop, and the owner at once said, " You were here years ago." Doubting his memory I said " No " ; but he '' Yes," and convinced me that he remembered me, though he referred to fifteen years previously ! He talked for half an hour, until I asked somewhat impatiently, '' Here, give me what I want and let me go ? "

This hurt him, and in my embarrassment I went off forgetting my walking-stick, which has a plant spud at the end. Soon I missed it, and the moment I appeared in the doorway he called to one of the half-dozen boys who stood to one side of him, '' Here, Nino, get the busy foreign gentleman his toothpick ! "

Cordova is full of fun, and chiefly so, I think, because one has time to observe and to let the humour sink in. In the market a small boy with a big apron and a pompous manner was offering half a mean kid to a woman for a peseta. She objected that it was very small, and he fairly smothered her with, *' Woman ! do you want half a bull for tenpence ! "

On a piece of waste ground outside the town were over eighty heaps of manure and litter, large and small, suitable for dressing land. This had been collected from the streets by men and boys.

CONFLICTING EMOTIONS 7

who sell it to farmers and market-gardeners on their homeward journeys. On one tiny heap, a mere bucketful, was planted a card with '' Cheap ! Quick ! Giving up business ! ''

This reminds me of some children who, born in Cordova, were taken to America, and, returning after years, said in an ecstasy, '' Oh, don't we love it all ! — even the dear old smells ! "

A daily paper had this bit of news : '' Nine boys playing with dynamite are friends no longer ; their pieces are not likely to be identified and obtain absolution."

At the post office I left fivepence, and calling the next day recognised the man with whom I left it ; he denied being present on the occasion ; he was, but when sure that I knew him, he fumbled in his pockets, and handing over the fivepence remarked, '' My honour is worth more than fifty cents ! " Quite so ; but that was his way of putting himself in the right, for he wished me to believe that I had swindled him.

My cross-eyed friend was named Hijos de Cordova — Sons of Cordova ! To what remote period does that name date ? Whether this served as a passport I know not ; but he had no difficulty in gaining an audience with the proud

Marchioness de O and persuading her to

allow me to inspect her apartments. This lady was the wife of a great gamester, and, though she had inherited three large fortunes, was very poor, and lived by retailing the treasures of her large old house ; a veritable museum, containing beautiful furniture, old lace and silk by the hundredweight, many rare cabinets, fine carvings, and a rich collection of fans and rosaries in all sorts of material. Unequal to purchasing any of these, I made choice of some things which were regarded as lumber — an immense tarima — an octagonal wooden device, five feet across, of carved wood ornamented with brass. This contrivance rests on the floor and supports the charcoal brazier, while the company sits round and uses the edge of the tarima as a footstool. A more interesting find was a muga — ladies' palfrey chair — in boxwood, with ivory and mother-ofpearl, the arm-rests representing two swan-necks and heads. The muga is no longer seen on the roads of Spain ; the peasantry do not employ it, and the ladies journey by private coach or train. Among the lumber were some disahumadors — incense burners used for sweetening and refreshing rooms. They are brass bowls on stands and have perforated covers. The custom was to macerate rosemary, lavender, dry roses, and other sweets of the garden and field, and, adding spices, mix these with hot ashes placed in the disahumador. The lumber-room also held broken statuary, window and door fittings containing heraldic figures and coats-of-arms. It seemed as if the Marchioness had taken and kept whatever would preserve links with the past. There were some beautiful azulejos — coloured tiles — from the celebrated

PRIDE IN TWO HOMES 9

castle of Niebla, near Huelva, which, built in the thirteenth century, was declared original in every detail, and perfect in all. Here also lay several partadors — curiously shaped brass rings large as a cheese-plate ; they are still used to keep the cloth clean when the puchero or other cooking vessel is placed on the table. These, with some others, I bought ; but the pride of the Marchioness stood in the way of her taking money, and I was told, in a roundabout fashion, that I might leave it with the doorkeeper. It would be easy to moralise over this collection of objects, dead and alive ; but, after all — it is the history of the world !

One day a wizened, but pretty, old dame stood at her door polishing a small copper bowl — a diminutive puchero or pipkin ; the shape was rare, the material of fine tone, and I determined to buy it. The value was but a few pesetas ; I offered as much, and she said, " We have no bread, my man is away looking for some ; but the bowl was my mother's.'' This was no excuse for raising the price. It was evident she loved the thing ; but the money was a small fortune, so she took it and I went off. Later I was overtaken by a decrepit old man, who held out his hat in one hand and what I had paid for the bowl in the other. I saw the situation, for he said as plainly as possible, '' Here is your money, I want my bowl." I asked '' Why ? " '' It is not possible that we sell it ; it was her mother's." The duty was plain. I gave him back the bowl and let him keep the money ; and felt I had had a good day.

In spite of the many beautiful things to be found in Spanish houses of the upper classes, there is nothing to correspond with the dining, drawing-room, or library of a British home. Ornaments are rarely seen, and all small and beautiful things are kept in vitrinas — glass cabinets — rinconeras — corner closets — rare old chests, and boxes on high legs. There is everywhere a craze for reflecting glasses and gold-gilding ; in a small drawing-room were fifteen deeply gilt-framed mirrors, four of which were several feet in breadth and depth. There were also, besides these mirrors, twenty-two pieces of reflecting glass in furniture, so that it was impossible to find any position where one did not get side, back, and upside-down views of oneself and the rest of the company !

The most conspicuous want in Spain is domestic comfort. The houses are always dangerously cold and dank in winter ; there are no fireplaces, and therefore no fires, except in charcoal braziers ; and no hot bath is possible, or even a cold one, in the average house. Easy chairs and couches are only used in the best houses, cafes, and clubs. Carpets and rugs are rarely seen, and there are no books, hobbies, or personal employments to give an air of ordered thought or individuality to the home. Of social life in private houses there is nothing. One is never introduced to a person

PRACTICAL ADVERTISING ii

without the Spaniard saying, '' I hope I may see you at your house ; it is in the Calle So-and-so, and always open/' But should you go there he will be taken aback ; and it is a thousand to one he will regard the visit as a '' barbarity." What is more, he has no gift of conversation at home, and, as you may not see his wife or play with his children, the call is generally a dull failure and discomforting. I write this because I would not have the reader blind to the shortcomings of Spanish life. My concern is to make fair comparisons, for we hold very erroneous impressions of the Spaniard, his country and its concerns.

Clothes-lines are too dear for many, and much of the laundry is spread on roofs, floors, pavements, and other space available. One wonders that the garments can be perfectly clean, yet they are surprisingly so. All the clothes are laved in cold water, and but little soap is used, a powerfully caustic lye — made by immersing wood ashes in water — taking its place. The finest lady and the grandest seiior have their clothes returned from the laundry without any wrapping, and the wellironed garments are used as advertisements ; boys, men, and women stop likely patrons in the street and exhibit petticoats, shirts, and other things ; all showing the deepest interest in the garments and the lavanderas' work.

Cordova is the home of the torero — bullfighter. Out of the ring the torero must live quietly ; and from time immemorial this old city has been his asylum during the winter season. Half the Calle Gondomar is taken up with cafes, clubs, and ring men. Their short jacketas, and peculiar walk, generally proclaim them. Also, they shave their temples ; but many other Spaniards do this ; so to make sure it is a torero one looks at the back of the head, as the bullfighter has his hair drawn up like a woman to form a pigtail, which is braided and pinned on his crown.

The stranger is surprised at the toreros' quietness, the absence of noise and display. You realise the truth of what the people of Verona said of Dante, '' the man who has been in hell.*'

The bullfighter saves his smiles for the ring. In private life he is the steadiest and most silent of men. Night after night I have sat with them in clubs and cafes to hear only the most conventional talk. One night, I remember, eleven prominent fighters sat together for over four hours ; they drank coffee, and smoked puras — cigars — incessantly. Now and then, one would speak and be eloquent with gesture, but the others would turn their heads, in a sign of indifference, and quiet would return.