Part 3 (2/2)
to tell me a legend about one of the churches; for there is generally some story to every square rod of ground hereabout, and indeed a little basilica below the town sustains four different narratives all explaining a single miracle. Serving as an appropriate foundation for local wonder-mongering, a great cave in the rock underlies some portion of the city, and is said to have been hollowed out by Hercules, who, in addition to his other labors, has received the credit of founding Toledo. I am convinced that no muscles but his could ever have stood the strain of first climbing its site. The cave I refer to has been for the most part of the last two hundred years closed and walled up. About thirty years since it was timidly explored by a society formed for the purpose, and some Roman remains were found in it; but after that, terror fell upon the explorers, and the cavern was again closed, remaining even yet a reservoir of mystery. There are equally mysterious things above ground, however, as will shortly be demonstrated by the tale of the ”Christ of Compa.s.sion.” Let me, before giving that, recall here a more poetic tradition, preserved by Senor Eugenio Olavarria, a young author of Madrid. We saw just outside the mosque-church of the Christ of Light an old Moorish well, of a kind common in Spain, with a low thick wall surrounding the deep sunken shaft, to rest the bucket-chain on when it is let down and drawn up by sheer muscular force. The edges were worn into one continuous pattern of grooves by the incessant chafing of the chains for ages, and we conjured up a dozen romances about the people who of old slaked their thirst there. It is about another water-source of the same kind, on a small street still called Descent to the Bitter Well, that the story here outlined is told:
THE WELL OF BITTERNESS.
”In the time of one of the Moorish kings there lived at Toledo, under the mild toleration of that epoch, a rich Jew, strictly and pa.s.sionately devoted to the laws of his religion and to one only other object: that one was his daughter Raquel, motherless, but able to solace his widowed heart with her devoted affection.
Sixteen Aprils had wrought their beautiful changes into her exquisite form and lovely mind, till at last, of all things which they had waked to life, she appeared the fairest.
”Reuben had gradually made her the chief end of his existence, and she certainly merited this absolute concentration of her father's love. But, notwithstanding that at this time Jews and Christians dwelt together unmolested by the Mohammedan rule, the inborn hostility between these two orders underwent no abatement.
Intercourse between them was sedulously avoided by each, and the springing up of any shy flower of love between man and maid of such hostile races was sure to be followed by deadly blight and ruin.
Nevertheless--and how it happened who can say?--Raquel, already ripened by the rich sun of her native land into a perfected womanhood, fell in love with a young Christian cavalier, who had himself surrendered to her silent and distant beauty as it shone upon him, while pa.s.sing, from her grated window in Reuben's stately mansion. He learned her name, and spoke it to her from the street--'Raquel!'--at twilight. So trembling and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with mutual love were they, that this one word, like the last o'erflowing drop of precious liquid from a vase, was enough to reveal to her what filled his heart. As she heard it she blushed as though it had been a kiss that he had reverently impressed upon her cheek; and this was answer enough--their secret and perilous courts.h.i.+p had begun. Thereafter they met often at night in the great garden attached to the house, making their rendezvous at the low-walled well that stood in a thicket of fragrant greenery. At last, through the prying of an aged friend, his daughter's pa.s.sion came to the knowledge of old Reuben, who had never till then even conceived of such disgrace as her being enamoured of a Christian.
His course was prompt and terrible. Concealing himself one evening behind a tree-trunk close to the well, he awaited the coming of the daring cavalier, sprung upon him, and after a short, noiseless struggle bore him down with a poniard in his breast!
”The stealthy opening of a door into the garden warned him of Raquel's approach. He hastened again into concealment. She arrived, saw her fallen lover, dropped at his side in agonies of terror, and sought to revive him. Then she saw and by the moonlight recognized her father's dagger in the breathless bosom of the young man, and knew what had happened. Moved by sudden remorse, Reuben came out with words of consolation ready. But she knew him not, she heard him not; from that instant madness was in her eyes and brain. Many months she haunted the spot at night, calm but hopelessly insane, and weeping silently at the margin of the well, into whose waters her salt tears descended. At length there came a night when she did not return to the house. She had thrown herself into the well and was found there--dead!
”Never again could any one drink its waters, which had been famous for their quality. Raquel's tears of sorrow had turned them bitter.”
The other legend is still more marvellous: ”In the reign of Enrique IV.
of Spain there was fierce rivalry between two Toledan families, the Silvas and the Ayalas, which in 1467 led to open warfare. The Silvas threw themselves into the castle, and the Ayalas held the cathedral--the blood shed in their combats staining the very feet of its altars. During this struggle of hatred there was also a struggle of love going on between two younger members of the embroiled families. Diego de Ayala, setting at naught the pride of his house, had given his heart to Isabel, the daughter of a poor hidalgo; but it so happened that his enemy, Don Lope de Silva, had resolved to win the same maiden, though receiving no encouragement from her. One night when the combatants were resting on their arms, and the whole city was in disorder, Don Lope succeeded in entering Isabel's house with several of his followers and carried her off--trusting to the general confusion to prevent interruption. As they were bearing her away across a little square in front of the Church of San Justo, Don Diego, on his way to see Isabel, encountered them.
”'Leave that woman, ye cowards, and go your way!' he commanded, with drawn sword. And at that instant, by the light of the lamp which burned before the pictured Christ of Compa.s.sion on the church wall, he recognized Isabel and Don Lope.
”Making a bold dash, he succeeded in freeing Isabel and getting her into the shelter of an angle in the wall, just below the holy figure. But being there hemmed in by his adversaries, he felt himself, after a sharp fight in which he dealt numerous wounds, fainting from the severe thrusts he had himself received. Fearing that he was mortally hurt, he raised his eyes to the shrine and prayed: 'O G.o.d, not for me, but for her, manifest thy pity! I am willing to die, but save her!'
”Then a marvellous brilliance streamed out from the thorn-crowned head, and instantly, propelled by some unseen force, Diego found himself and Isabel pushed through the solid wall behind them, which opened to receive them into the sanctuary, and closed again to keep out the a.s.sa.s.sins. Don Lope rushed forward in pursuit, and in his rage hacked the stones with his sword as if to cut his way through. The marks made in the stone by his weapon are still to be seen there.” The compa.s.sionate face still looks down from the shrine, and little sign-boards announce indulgences to those who pray there: ”Senor Don Luis Maria de Borbon, most Ill.u.s.trious Senor Bishop of Carista, grants forty days' indulgence to all who with grief for their sins say, 'Lord have mercy on me!' or make the acts of Faith, Charity, and Hope before this image, praying for the necessities of the Church.”
Altogether I computed that a good Catholic could by a half-hour's industry secure immunity for two hundred and twenty days, or nearly two-thirds of a year. It is to be feared that the Toledans are too lazy to profit even by this splendid chance.
The majority of people here who can command a daily income of ten cents will do no work. Numbers of the inhabitants are always standing or leaning around drowsily, like animals who have been hired to personate men, and are getting tired of the job. Every act approaching labor must be done with long-drawn leisure. Men and boys slumber out-of-doors even in the hot sun, like dogs; after sitting meditatively against a wall for a while, one of them will tumble over on his nose--as if he were a statue undermined by time--and remain in motionless repose wherever he happens to strike. Business with the trading cla.s.s itself is an incident, and resting is the essence of the mundane career.
Nevertheless, the place has fits of activity. When the mid-day siesta is over there is a sudden show of doing something. Men begin to trot about with a springy, cat-like motion, acquired from always walking up and down hill, which, taken with their short loose blouses, dark skins, and roomy canvas slippers, gives them an astonis.h.i.+ng likeness to Chinamen.[5] The slip and scramble of mule hoofs and donkey hoofs are heard on the steep pavements, and two or three loud-voiced, l.u.s.ty men, with bare arms, carrying a capacious tin can and a dipper, go roaring through the torrid streets, ”Hor-cha-ta!” Then the cathedral begins wildly pounding its bells, all out of tune, for vespers. The energy which has broken loose for a couple of hours is discovered to be a mistake, and another interval of relaxation sets in, lasting through the night, and until the glare of fiery daybreak, greeted by the shrill whistling of the remorseless pet quail, sets the insect-like stir going again for a short time in the forenoon. Because of such apathy, and of a more than the usual Latin disregard for public decency, the streets and houses are allowed to become pestilential, and drainage is unknown.
Enervating luxury of that sort did well enough for the Romans and Moors, but is literally below the level of Castilian ideas. In the midst of the most sublime emotion aroused by the a.s.sociations or grim beauty of Toledo, you are sure to be stopped short by some intolerable odor.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”MEN AND BOYS SLUMBER OUT-OF-DOORS EVEN IN THE HOT SUN.”]
The primate city was endowed with enough of color and quaintness almost to compensate for this. We never tired of the graceful women walking the streets vestured in garments of barbaric tint and endlessly varied ornamentation, nor of the men in short breeches split at the bottom, who seemed to have splashed pots of vari-colored paint at hap-hazard over their clothes, and insisted upon balancing on their heads broad-brimmed, pointed hats, like a combination of sieve and inverted funnel. There was a spark of excitement, again, in the random entry of a ”guard of the country,” mounted on his emblazoned donkey-saddle, with a small a.r.s.enal in his waist sash, and a couple of guns slung behind on the beast's flanks, ready for marauders. Even now in remembrance the blots on Toledo fade, and I see its walls and towers throned grandly amid those hills that were mingled of white powder and fire at noon-tide, but near evening cooled themselves down to olive and russet citron, with burning rosy shadows resting in the depressions.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A STRANGE FUNERAL.]
One of the first spectacles that presented itself to us will remain also one of the latest recollections. Between San Juan de los Reyes and the palace of Roderick we met unexpectedly a crowd of boys and girls, followed by a few men, all carrying lighted candles that glowed spectrally, for the sun was still half an hour high in the west. A stout priest, with white hair and a vinous complexion, had just gone down the street, and this motley group was following the same direction.
Somewhat in advance walked a boy with a small black and white coffin, held in place on his head by his upraised arm, as if it were a toy; and in the midst of the candle-bearers moved a light bier like a basket-cradle, carried by girls, and containing the small waxen form of a dead child three or four years old, on whose impa.s.sive, colorless face the orange glow of approaching sunset fell, producing an effect natural yet incongruous. A scampering dog accompanied the mourners, if one may call them such, for they gave no token of being more impressed, more touched by emotion, than he. The cradle-bier swayed from side to side as if with a futile rockaby motion, until the bearers noticed how carelessly they were conveying it down the paved slope; and the members of the procession talked to each other with a singular indifference, or looked at anything which caught their random attention. As the little rabble disappeared through the Puerta del Cambron, with their long candles dimly flaming, and the solemn, childish face in their midst, followed by the poor unconscious dog, it seemed to me that I beheld in allegory the departure from Toledo of that spirit of youth whose absence leaves it so old and worn.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
_CORDOVAN PILGRIMS._
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