Part 6 (2/2)
These pictures were sent to Boston for a loan exhibition during the last revolution in Spain, in 1874; and although their aggregate worth is easily surpa.s.sed by the pictures preserved at the public gallery of Sevilla and at the Caridad Hospital, the Duke of Montpensier's possessions embrace a masterly portrait of Velazquez, by himself (repeated in the Museo at Valencia), and a charming ”Madonna of the Swaddling Clothes,” by Murillo. San Telmo was formerly a nautical college, having been founded by the son of Christopher Columbus.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A STREET CORNER.]
But the long succession of apartments through which the visitor is ushered suggests no a.s.sociation with the former maritime prowess of Spain; it is haunted rather by the failures and disappointments of its owner, who, missing the throne on which his foot had almost rested, lived to see his daughter, Queen Mercedes, die, and another daughter mysteriously follow Mercedes into the grave after being plighted to the reigning King. The grounds attached to the palace are very large, and filled with palms, orange-trees, and other less tropical growths; and they may be inspected, under the guidance of a forester armed with an innocuous gun, by anybody who, after getting permission, is willing to pay a small fee and tire himself out by an aimless ramble.
Sevilla, where Murillo was born and spent so many years of artistic activity in the height of his powers, is the next best place after Madrid for a study of the sweetest among Spanish painters. His house still stands in the Jews' Quarter, and a few of his best works are kept in the picture-gallery; among them the one which he was wont to call ”my picture”--”St. Thomas of Villanueva Giving Alms.” Like the ”Saint Elizabeth” at Madrid, it is a grand study of beggary--vagabondism as you may see it to-day throughout Spain, but here elevated by excellent design, charming sympathy with nature, and the resources of a delightful colorist, into something possessing dignity and permanent interest--qualities which the original phenomenon lacks. Murillo is pure, sincere, simple, but never profound; though to this he perhaps approaches more nearly in his ”St. Francis Embracing the Crucified Saviour” than in any other of his productions. Like others of his pictures in Sevilla, however, it is painted in his latest style, called ”vaporoso,” which, to my thinking, marks by its meretricious softness of hazy atmosphere, and its too free coloring, a distinct decadence. In the church connected with the Caridad are hung two colossal canvases, one depicting the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the other, Moses striking the rock. This last is better known by its popular t.i.tle, ”The Thirst,” which pays tribute to its masterly portrayal of that animal desire. In the suffering revealed by the faces of the Israelites, as well as the eager joy of the crowd (and even of their beasts of burden) on receiving relief, there is a dramatic contention of pain and pleasure, for the rendering of which the naturalistic genius of the artist was eminently suited--and he has made the most of his opportunity. The representation is terribly true; and its range of observation culminates in the figure of the mother drinking first, though her babe begs for water; for this is exactly what one would expect in Spanish mothers of her cla.s.s, whose faces are lined with a sombre harshness, a want of human kindness singularly repellent. Such a picture is hardly agreeable; and it must be owned that, excepting in his gentle, honest ”Conceptions,” and a few other pieces, Murillo shares the earthiness of his national school, the effect of which, despite much magnificence in treatment, is on the whole depressing.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGARO.]
The House of Pilate, owned by the Duke of Medina Celi, is quite another sort of thing from San Telmo; a roomy, irregular edifice, dating from the sixteenth century, but almost wholly Saracenic. The walls are _repousses_ in fine arabesques, and sheathed at the base with old color-veined tiles that throw back the light in flashes from their surface. These also enamel the grand staircase, which makes a square turn beneath a roof described as a _media naranja_--natural Spanish music for our plain ”half-orange”--the vault of which is fretted cedar cased in stucco. At the top landing is posted a c.o.c.k in effigy, representing the one that crowed witness to Peter's denial. Again, a balcony is shown which stands for that at which Pilate washed his hands before the people; and in fine, the whole place is net-worked with fancies of this kind, identifying it with the scene of Christ's trial.
For it was the whim of the lordly founder to make his house the starting-point for a Via Crucis, marking the path of Jesus on his way to crucifixion, and these devices were adopted to heighten the verisimilitude of the scene. In Pa.s.sion-week pilgrims come to pray at the several ”stations” along the route to the figurative Calvary at the end of the Via.
Into the Duke of Montpensier's garden stare the plebeian, commercial--let us hope unenvious--windows of the government tobacco factory; an enormous building, guarded like a fort to prevent the smuggling out of tobacco. Indeed, every one of the three thousand women employed is carefully watched for the same purpose as she pa.s.ses forth at the general evening dismissal. Mounting the broad stairs of stone, I heard a peculiar medley of light sounds in the distance. If a lot of steam-looms were endowed with the faculty of throwing out falsetto and soprano notes instead of their usual inhuman click, the effect could not be more uninterrupted than this subdued merry buzzing. It was the chatter of the working-girls in the cigarette room. As we stepped over the threshold these sounds continued with _crescendo_ effect, ourselves being taken for the theme. At least one hundred girls fixed their attention on us, delivering a volley of salutations, jokes, and general remarks.
”What do you seek, little senor? You will get no _papelitos_ here!”
exclaimed one, pretty enough to venture on sauciness.
”French, French! don't you see?” another said; and her companions, in airy tones, begged us to disburse a few _cuartos_, which are cent-and-a-quarter pieces.
There was one young person of a satirical turn who affected to approve a very small beard which one of us had raised incidentally in travelling.
She stroked her own smooth cheek, and carolled out, ”What a pretty barbule!”
They certainly were not enslaved to conventionality, though they may be to necessity. They seemed to enjoy themselves, too. Their eyes flashed; they broke into laughter; they bent their heads to give effect to the regulation flat curls on their temples, and all the time their nimble fingers never stopped filling cigarettes, rolling the papers, whisking them into bundles, and seizing fresh pinches of tobacco. In all there were three or four hundred of them, and some of them had a spendthrift, common sort of beauty, which, owing to their Southern vivacity and fine physique, had the air of being more than it really was. At first glance there appeared to be a couple of hundred other girls hung up against the walls and pillars; but these turned out to be only the skirts and boots of the workers, which are kept carefully away from the smouch of the cigarette trays, so as to maintain the proverbially neat appearance of their wearers on the street. Some of the women, however, were scornful and morose, and others pale and sad. It was easy to guess why, when we saw their babies lying in improvised box-cradles or staggering about naked, as if intoxicated with extreme youth and premature misery, or as if blindly beginning a search for their fathers--something none of them will ever find. We laid a few coppers in the cradles, and went on to the cigar-room.
It was much the same, excepting that the soberness of experience there partially took the place of the giddiness rampant among the cigarette girls. There were some appalling old crones among the thousand individuals who rolled, chopped, gummed, and tied cigars at the low tables distributed through a heavily groined stone hall choked with thick pillars, and some six hundred or seven hundred yards in length.
Others, on the contrary, looked blooming and coquettish. Many were in startling deshabille, resorted to on account of the intense July heat, and hastened to draw pretty _panuelos_ of variegated dye over their bare shoulders when they saw us coming. Here, too, there was a large nursery business being carried on, with a very damaged article of child, smeary, sprawling, and crying. Nor was it altogether cheering to observe now and then a woman who, having dissipated too late the night before, sat fast asleep with her head in the cigar dust of the table.
”_Ojala!_ May G.o.d do her work!” cried one of her friends. If he did not, it was not because there was any lack of shrines in the factory. They were erected here and there against the wall, with gilt images and candles arrayed in front of a white sheet, and occasionally the older women knelt at their devotions before them. I don't object to the shrines, but it struck me that a good _creche_ system for the children might not come amiss.
As to the factory-girls smoking cigarettes in public, it is an operatic fiction: no such practice is common in Spain. And the beauty of these Carmens has certainly been exaggerated. It may be remarked here that, as an offset to occasional disappointment arising from such exaggerations, all Spanish women walk with astonis.h.i.+ng gracefulness, a natural and elastic step; and that is their chief advantage over women of other nations. Even the chamber-maids of Sevilla were modelled on a heroic, ancient-history plan, with big, supple necks, and showed such easy power in their movements that we half feared they might, in tidying the rooms, pick us up by mistake and throw us away somewhere to perish miserably in a dust-heap. Why there should be so much inborn ease and freedom expressed in the manner of women who are guarded with Oriental precautions, I don't know. Andalusian fathers have, no doubt, the utmost confidence in their daughters, but at the same time they save them the trouble of taking care of themselves by putting iron gratings on the windows. The _reja_, the domestic gittern, is very common in Sevilla.
The betrothed suitor, if he is quite correct, must hold his tender interviews with his mistress through its forbidding bars. My companion actually saw a handsome young fellow standing on the sidewalk, and conducting one of these peculiar _tete-a-tetes_.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.”]
Every house is, furthermore, provided with a _patio_. The facades, as a rule, are monotonous and unspeakably plain, but the poorest dwelling always has its airy court set with shrubs, and perhaps provided with water. They are tiled, as most rooms are in Spain--a good precaution against vermin, which unluckily is not infallible as regards fleas, which search the traveller in Spain even more rigorously than the customs officers or the Civil Guards. The flea is still and small, like the voice of conscience, but that is the only moral thing about him. In the Peninsula I found him peculiarly unregenerate. As to these patios, the well-to-do protect them from the open vestibule leading to the street by gates of ornamental open iron, letting the air-currents play through the unroofed court, and sometimes with movable screens behind the gate. Chess-tables and coffee are carried out there in the evening, and the music-room gives conveniently upon the cool central s.p.a.ce.
In Sevilla, if you hear a shrill little bell tinkling in the street, do not imagine that a bicycle is coming. One day a slight tintinnabulation announced the approach of a funeral procession, headed by two gentlemen wearing round caps and blue gowns, on which were sewed flaming red hearts. One bore a small alms-basket; the other rung the bell to attract contributions. It appears that this is the manner appointed for sundry brothers who maintain the Caridad, a hospital for indigent old men. The members, though pursuing their ordinary mode of life, are banded for the support of the inst.i.tution. Necessarily rich and aristocrats, it matters not: when one of them dies, he must be buried by means of offerings collected on the way to his grave. This Caridad, let me add, was founded by Don Miguel de Manera, a friend of Don Juan, and a reformed rake. His epitaph reads: ”Here lie the ashes of the worst man that ever was.” I suspect a lingering vanity in that a.s.sertion, but at any rate the tombstone tries hard _not_ to lie.
Fas.h.i.+onable society, after recovering from its mid-day siesta, and before going to the theatre or ball, turns itself out for an airing on Las Delicias--”The Delights”--an arbored road running two or three miles along the river-side. Nowhere can you see more magnificent horses than there. Their race was formerly crossed with the finest mettle of Barbary studs, and their blood, carried into Kentucky through Mexico, may have had its share in the victories of Parole, Iroquois, and Foxhall. A more strictly popular resort is the New Plaza, where citizens attend a concert and fireworks twice a week in summer, and keep their distressed babies up till midnight to see the fun. They are less demonstrative than one would expect. An American reserve hangs over them. Perfect informality reigns; they saunter, chat, and laugh without constraint, yet their enjoyment is taken in a languid, half-pensive way. In the various foot-streets where carriages do not appear--the most notable of which is the winding one called simply Sierpes, ”The Serpents”--the same quietude prevails. Lined with attractive bazar-like shops, and overhung by ”sails” drawn from roof to roof, which make them look like telescopic booths, these streets form shady avenues down which figures glide un.o.btrusively: sometimes a cigarette girl in a pale geranium skirt, with a crimson shawl; sometimes a lady in black, with lace-draped head; and perhaps an erroneous man in a heavy blue cloak, saving up warmth for next winter; or a peasant re-arranging his scarlet waist-cloth by tucking one end into his trousers, then turning round and round till he is wound up like a watch-spring, and finally putting his needle-pointed knife into the folds, ready for the next quarrel.
[Ill.u.s.tration: IN ”THE SERPENT.”]
Once we caught sight of two belted forms with carbines stealing across the alley, far down, as if for a flank movement against us. Oh, horror!
they were the Civil Guards, who were always blighting us at the happiest moment. As they did not succeed in capturing us, we believed they must have lost themselves in one of the _calles_ that squirm through the houses with no visible intention of ever coming out anywhere. Velveteen wanted to go and look for their bones, thinking they had perished of starvation, but I opportunely reflected that we might ourselves be lost in the attempt. No wonder a.s.sa.s.sination has been frequent in these narrow windings! Once astray in them, that would be the easiest way out.
Shall we go to the Thursday-morning fair, which begins, in order to avoid the great heats, at 6 A.M.? Come, then; and if we are up early, we may pa.s.s on the way through the low-walled market, gay with fruits, flowers, vegetables, where bread from Alcala in the exact pattern of b.u.t.tercup blossoms is sold, and where, at a particularly b.l.o.o.d.y and ferocious stall, butchers are dispensing the meat of bulls slaughtered at the fights. The fair is held in Fair Street. A frantic miscellany of old iron, of clothing, crockery, mat baskets, and large green pine-cones full of plump seeds, which, when ripened, taste like b.u.t.ternuts, is set forth. Full on the pavement is spread an array of second-hand shoes--the proverbial dead men's, perhaps--temptingly blacked. Pale cinereous earthen vessels, all becurled with raised patterns like intelligent wax-drippings, but exceedingly well shaped, likewise monopolize the thoroughfare, put in peril only by random dogs, which, having quarrelled over the offal freely thrown into the street for them, sometimes race disreputably through the brittle ware. At apt corners old women have set up their frying-pans under Bedouin tents, and are cooking _calent.i.tos_--long coils of dough browned in hot olive oil--which are much sought as a relish for the matutinal chocolate. Omnipresent, of course, are those water stalls that, in Sevilla especially, acquire eminent dignity by their row of stout jars, and their complicated cordage rigged across from one house-top to another, so as to sustain shadowing canvas canopies. There is a great crowd, but even the fair is comparatively quiet, like the other phases of local life.
The absence of wagon-traffic in the town creates, notwithstanding its reposeful character, a new relative scale of noises, and there is consequently good store of fretting attacks on the hearing in Sevilla.
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