Part 17

"Tienes el mismo nombre "Thou hast the same name Que la Patrona,[29] As our patroness,[29] Tienes 'ange' en la cara, Thou hast the face of an angel, Tienes corona, Thou art a queen, Dios te bendiga! May God bless thee, Eres la más hermosa The fairest that has come Que entró en Sevilla." to Seville!"

The loud exclamations of delight in the robust health of the little Prince of Asturias pleased the Queen, and as she passed through the cheering mass of people, she made very gracefully the foreign gesture of greeting, the fingers bent back rapidly on the palm. As the night journey had tired her, the doctors ordered her immediate entrance into the Alcázar, postponing the _Te Deum_ till the afternoon; and Seville, who clings tenaciouly to old customs, was distinctly displeased.

The group that stood on the Cathedral steps later in the day was superb. There was the Archbishop in cope and miter, with his silver crozier, the canons in purple robes, the acolytes bearing the historic crosses carried on festivals, and all the chief citizens of the town. For just this occasion the huge western doors were thrown open, giving a new aspect to the nave; through this door the King is the only one privileged to pass, but on this her _first_ entrance, the Queen too. The Archbishop on first coming to his church and when carried out to his burial passes under this portal. The King and Queen, led by the Archbishop, now walked up the nave, chanting _Te Deum laudamus_, and before leaving they went to kneel in the Royal Chapel where, before the High Altar, lies King Ferdinand the Saint who conquered Seville in 1248, after five hundred years of Moorish rule. Here on November 23d, anniversary of his entrance to the city, a Military Mass is said, and the colors are lowered as the garrison files past. To a Sevillian that day of 1248 is as alive as the Battle of Lexington to a New Englander.

This being a first visit, some brisk sightseeing was done. They automobiled out to Italica to see the Roman amphitheater there; and the day after her arrival Doña Victoria redeemed the good-will of the Sevillians by driving, in black mantilla, to visit a church in a poor part of the city where is an altar to Our Lady of Hope, dear to expectant mothers. In the Lonja, where the Indian archives are kept, Don Alfonso pored over the maps of Mexico and the autographs of Cortés and Pizarro; in the _Museo_, the Queen again touched the sentiment of the Spanish women by preferring Murillo's realistic "Adoration of the Shepherds." The Duke of Medinaceli got up some splendid provincial dances and tableaux in his Mudéjar _Casa de Pilatos_, one of the show places of the town. We happened to meet the pretty peasant girls who had taken part returning home, singing and waving to the crowd, like birds of paradise, in their rose and lemon silk shawls. There seemed to be a congenial companionship between the young royal people. They were at ease together. The King, extremely fragile-looking, has a thin Hapsburg face so eminently sympathetic that sometimes when he would give an affectionate grin at his applauding subjects he made one rather wish to be a Spaniard one's self. With the irresistible impulses of youth he would sally out from the Alcázar to explore the city on foot, like any other happy, free mortal, but sooner or later the cry "_El Rey!_" would gather a crowd and force him back to his state. One day he had to jump into a fiacre to escape the crush, and it was very jolly to see the descendant of the severe Philip II, of the inflated, pompous Bourbons, dashing through Seville, laughing at the good sport. We often met him riding back from Toblada in the late afternoon from polo, and it certainly appeared as if the affection of his countrymen went with him. I should say few kings are loved as is young Alfonso XIII, and Seville especially prides herself on being _muy leal_. Did not Alfonso _el Sabio_ (tenth of the name, as this Alfonso is the thirteenth) give the city the famous _nodo_, seen everywhere as the town crest, for just this trait of loyalty six centuries ago? So several times a day an eager crowd gathered to watch the King pass, or to cheer for the rosy little Prince of Asturias who drove out with his titled governess and two nurses,--one of severe English propriety, the other a romantic Spanish peasant--behind four big mules decked with Andalusian red trappings and bells. A whole series of fêtes were preparing when the tragic assassination of the King of Portugal and his eldest son at Lisbon put a stop to the rejoicing. The sensation in Seville was enormous, as the Portuguese Queen had brought her two sons the year before to follow the services of Holy Week here, and her mother, the Countess of Paris, lives in an estate near the city. Don Alfonso had just gone for a week's big-game hunting to the Granada mountains, when he hurried back to take part in the funeral service held in Madrid at the same hour as that in Lisbon. On his return to Seville his changed appearance showed what a shock the tragedy had been; not relationship alone but friendship united him to Portugal.

Before the Royal visit ended there was a grand review of the troops in the park, where Don Alfonso wore a new uniform, that of the Hussars of Pavia, in commemoration of the great victory of Charles V in Italy four centuries before. Audience was given the envoys from the new King of Sweden in the Ambassador's hall of the Alcázar, which it was said had not been so used since Isabella's day. A mild form of carnival was followed by Ash Wednesday, when the King and Queen and court attended the services in the _Capilla Real_ of the Cathedral, before St. Ferdinand's silver tomb. As they passed out between the dense mass of people, my heart sprang to my mouth when I saw a man struggling to reach the King,--fortunately only a humble petitioner, but the Lisbon assassinations had filled everyone with terror. The royal visit over, came Holy Week, but that and the dancing of the _seises_ merit some pages to themselves.

A CHURCH FEAST IN SEVILLE

"I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of thy house; and the place where thy glory dwelleth."--PSALMS XXV, 8.

"When after many conquerors came Christ The only conqueror of Spain indeed, Not Bethlehem nor Golgotha sufficed To show him forth, but every shrine must bleed, And every shepherd in his watches heed The angels' matins sung at heaven's gate. Nor seemed the Virgin Mary wholly freed From taint of ill if born in frail estate, But shone the seraph's queen and soar'd immaculate."

GEORGE SANTAYANA.

The eighth of December is a great day in Spain, but more especially in Seville where they look on the Immaculate Conception as their special feast, symbolized, hundreds of years before the dogma was defined, by their fellow townsman Murillo, in the seraphic purity of his _Concepción_. The celebration began on the day preceding the eighth with an early-morning peal of bells that lasted half an hour, and was frequently repeated during the day. Nothing can express the mad, exultant peal of Spanish bells: one strong metallic dong backward and forward,--or rather over and over, for the bells are balanced with weights and make the complete circle when in motion,--with a running carillon of more musical minor notes. We mounted to a roof terrace to watch the ringers in the Giralda, who in reckless enjoyment, let the rope of the revolving bell toss them aloft, a perilous feat that has led to fatal accidents, but high up in that Moorish tower, above the palm and orange-growing city, a triumphant tumult filling the air, it must be easy to lose one's balance of common-sense.

Toward evening of the _Víspera de la Pureza_, every one placed lights along the balconies, which were draped with blue and white, those of the Archbishop's palace, under the Giralda, being hung in red and yellow, the national colors. A military band played in one of the smaller plazas, and the Seville girls flocked out in full enjoyment, each with the customary rose or bright ribbon in her hair. The people of the upper classes entertained their friends in open booths around the square.

Then on the eighth itself, the bells fairly out-did themselves in tumultuous clamor, calling all to the Cathedral, that haunting soul of the city, _La Grandeza_, the noble, the solemn, its special title. Sevillians love to boast that it is bigger than St. Peters in Rome and cite its 15,642 square meters of ground area to St. Peter's 15,160. It is truly one of the most imposing churches in the world; vast and dim, the lofty Gothic piers make double aisles as they rise in springing arches to the roof. I have seen tourists enter laughing and chatting, but before they take ten steps instinctively their voices are lowered and they walk reverently with half-bowed heads. This serious temple to God is worthy of the men of big ideas who decided "to construct a church such and so good it never should have its equal," to accomplish which vow the canons sacrificed their personal revenues, and for a century the Cathedral Chapter ate in common.[30]

December eighth I was in place early, in time to see each lady carry in her own folding chair and set it up in the matted space between the altar and choir: surely it is in church that the Spanish woman is at her best, in her severe black gown, with her veil draped over a high hair comb and gathered gracefully about the shoulders and waist. When she kneels she makes a sign of the cross, which has national additions. After the usual sign from forehead to breast, left shoulder to right, she carries her thumb crossed over her first finger to her lips. I am told this is a token of fidelity to the faith of the cross, and is often a way by which Spaniards recognize their countrymen in foreign countries. And since Seville out-does Spain in most customs, here are still other additions. They precede the sign of the cross by making a small cross on the forehead, lips, and breast; and there are many who even precede _this_ by a first regular sign of the cross, thus making two signs of the cross with the gospel symbol between. All this is done so rapidly that it takes several days of close observation to decipher it.

Gradually the church filled for the great feast, until a solid mass of people knelt or stood in the transepts, covering every foot from which the High Altar could be seen; there was no crowding or impatience, for this was not for them a show, but their daily place of prayer. The onlooking tourist too often forgets this vital difference. In most cases he is ignorant of the meaning of church ritual; mental prayer, meditation on the feast celebrated, the unspeakable spirituality of the Mass are undivined by him; it is curiosity or æsthetic pleasure that usually brings him there. As I thought later during the Holy Week, it must be a soul weariness to sit during long hours, through ceremonies one cannot follow intelligently. On this festival, first there was a procession round the church to bless the various altars dedicated to the Blessed Virgin ("For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things." St. Luke i, 48-49). Over the first altar visited hung Luis de Vargas' celebrated picture of Adam and Eve, the _Generación_, painted in the sixteen century to symbolize to-day's doctrine. Before the procession walked officers in uniform, then groups of acolytes, bearing antique silver crosses and the six-foot silver poles that end in handsome candle shrines. Seville gentlemen in dress suits followed, and then the Archbishop in cope and miter, with canons, beneficiaries, and choristers in vestments rich in gold and embroidery. The long imposing train passed slowly round the outer aisle. To those who remained before the altar, the chanting of the procession came but faintly, so colossal is the church, though like all well-proportioned things it is only from effects such as this that one realizes its size. The solemn High Mass proceeded, now the deep magnificently male voice of the organs, now the delicate stringed instruments, with human voices, for the Spaniard fearlessly follows his impulses of worship and presses every talent into the service of the altar. Twenty laymen were grouped in the _coro_ about a priest who led with his baton, and beside them stood the chorister lads who were to dance that afternoon before the tabernacle, as David once danced before the Ark of the Covenant. Their mediæval dress, a singularly pleasing Russian blouse of blue and white, with white breeches and slippers, was worn with so unconscious a grace that they were a charming sight as they sang in clear childish treble.

The altar, one blaze of light, was approached by twelve steps, up and down which the bishop and canons swept in their gorgeous robes. Below the steps stood twelve silver candlesticks higher than a man, and close by were displayed the priceless flagons and trays used on high feasts. Every accessory of Seville's Cathedral is on a vast scale; the _retablo_ of carved scenes towers to a hundred feet; the gilded _rejas_, wrought by the monk of Salamanca in the same disregard for man's limitations in which the whole Cathedral was built, and whose dark fretwork enhances the brilliant scenes they enclose, all tell of an age of ardent faith when men gave of their best.

The service over, the Archbishop passed to the sacristy which for this day was thrown open to the people, and they thronged in to kiss the episcopal ring, and to gaze at the Murillos and other masters. Then his vestments laid aside, the prelate, accompanied by a dense crowd, crossed the square to his palace, but before leaving the church, he paused by the chapel of Gonsalvo Núñez de Sepúlveda, who in 1654 left a fortune to the Cathedral that this Octave of the Immaculate Conception should be fitly celebrated. Even after the three-hour service some people lingered in the side chapels, and the choristers, in their picturesque costume, gathered in the _capilla mayor_ of the partly deserted church to continue their songs of praise: not for outer effect alone had these hymns been taught them, but to glorify One unseen but all-seeing. The spirit of inner worship was not lost in its outward symbolization.

During the Octave, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, and unceasing were the offices of praise and song. In the late afternoon of each day came the dance of _los seises_ before the Altar, perhaps one of the most poetic customs remaining in Christendom. The Archbishop, in red robes, again entered the chancel surrounded by the canons, and they all knelt, some here, some there, in unconsciously artistic groups,--the strong firm profiles like those of the donors in Italian pictures. Some knelt in meditation, others affectionately watched the dance of the lads; they too, as boys, may have been choristers. It is more a quiet rhythmic stepping to music than a dance, and all the while they sing in their clear, high voices. Twice the music stopped, and for a few seconds the lads moved slowly to the sound of their own castanets. This unique custom commemorates the Christian's entry into the conquered Moslem town more than six hundred years ago, when the children are said to have danced and sung for joy. These twentieth century Christian lads, their part now over, passed up the steps of the altar into a small sacristy behind it; and the musicians continued a lovely concert of sacred music, a last half hour of peace and prayer that seemed like the benediction of the great darkened church on the bowed groups of worshipers.

I came away from the Cathedral every evening with the feeling that there are many and various ways of praising God. Yet so much criticism has this Seville custom roused, that, a few hundred years ago, the Pope ordered its discontinuance, allowing the dance to go on only as long as the costumes then in use should last, but the people, who love their old usages, succeeded in evading the decision by successive patching of the suits. This is the story. Certainly the graceful costumes to-day show no tatters, and they are worn so carelessly that they make no suggestion of masquerade. For the many who crave a quieter form of worship, the grave cathedral services of Northern Spain may be more congenial, but when as many desire magnificence and display, why should not they too be satisfied? The church allows for all tastes and temperaments, knowing man is not cast in one mold. The Puritan in her midst does not have to turn Dissenter; she has her Salvation Army--so I call the pilgrimage-going crowds; the ascetic fulfils the hard law of his nature side by side with the enjoyer of human affections and graces. Seville's feast, rich with old traditions, is appropriate in this southern city. To linger each evening in the vast church lighted only by solitary candles against each pier, to wander behind the kneeling groups listening to the soaring voices of man and violin, to pause beside a certain tomb in the south transept where four mammoth figures of bronze, ungainly on close view but in a half light majestic, bear on their shoulders a bier which holds the remains of Cristóbal Colón,--such hours of loitering quicken the imagination and leave behind them memories of beauty.

HOLY WEEK IN SEVILLE

"A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance."

ECCLES. iii, 4.

An overcrowded picture rises with the thought of Seville's _Semana Santa_,--glittering lights, statues laden with jewels, weird masked figures in _nazareno_ costume marching to the sound of funeral dirges, cries of street vendors and children,--all is noise, movement, color, a true Andalusian scene. Spectacular effect is the first impression of the week, a gorgeous pageantry that suits the Sevillian's temperament but is not so congenial perhaps to the northerner, who would have the commemoration of his religion's solemn hour a more tranquil time of prayer.

Happily there are other memories carried away as well as this chief one of noisy confusion. Never to be forgotten was the Cathedral echoing at midnight to the sound of Eslava's "Miserere" sung by hundreds of trained voices. Every inch of the vast church was packed. Men and women stood in silence, with upraised faces, as they listened to the music of the old canon who once sat in this choir. The lightest mocker would be awed to silence under those soaring arches. For majesty, for a contagious religious emotion, the Cathedral of Seville at the time of its feasts is only to be rivaled by Santa Sophia during Ramazan, on that memorable Night of Power when eight thousand Mussulmans kneel prostrate under the floating circles of lamps. These two stand supreme; so different in the setting,--the one rich with color, an open blaze of light beneath the wide Byzantine dome, the other dim, mysterious Gothic,--they are alike in the genuine thrill of worship they give the onlooker of every creed.

Familiar with her Cathedral in its every-day aspect, having seen the celebrations of December 8th, the Christmas Midnight Mass, Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, it was cruel to find its grand tranquillity violated during the Holy Week. It is the processions, called the _pasos_, that are the cause of the disorder. A _paso_ is a huge platform, on which are placed carved statues representing scenes of the Passion. Each float is carried by some thirty men, and its weight must be enormous, for besides the statues there are silver candelabra, gold and silver vases, and usually a canopy of embroidered velvet upheld by silver poles. Could one but look on them as mere spectacular shows, they would be most picturesque pageants, but to dissociate them from religion is impossible. The custom is an ancient one and is still prevalent in many towns of Spain, through happily, in the smaller places, its original purpose to edify and rouse the people to rememberance of the holy season, has not been lost sight of in extravagant display as at Seville.

Each of Seville's numerous parishes has one or two of these _pasos_, and an unworthy rivalry exists between them as to which will make the best show. They are supposed to be scenes of the Passion, such as the Flagellation, Christ before Pilate, the Descent from the Cross, but for the most part they consist of single figures--a Crucifixion followed by a _Nuestra Señora de Dolores_, another Crucifixion followed by another single representation of Our Lady, and so on in monotonous sequence, a repetition that makes the spectator fix his attention, not on the scene represented but on details such as the embroidery of the robes, the display of rare jewels, the elaborate canopy. The _pasos_ struck me as the result of that regrettable tendency in Spain, the accentuated devotion to a special shrine or statue. No doubt it arose in reaction against the Moorish enemy's hatred of images, but the patriotic tendency has been carried too far. It will ever misrepresent the Spaniard's innate Christian belief. As these processions blocked the city streets, one heard on every side, not alone from those of differing creed, exclamations of "Pomp! Show! Childishness!" And the criticism was almost justified. Many strangers leave Seville confirmed in the wrong idea that its religion is an affair of tinsel and lights. Spain cares little what outsiders think of her, but here is a case in which she should consider the discredit that a degenerated custom brings on her religion; she should sacrifice an old tradition. Like the processions of Havana, the _pasos_ should go. The northern Spaniard agrees with the stranger in his dislike of the noisy spectacles that so incongruously commemorate the saddest death-scene of the ages, and there are many Andalusians, too, who wish for their abolition. In fact, it is the rabble and the innkeepers who agitate in their favor; these last keep petitions for their foreign guests to sign, begging that the processions be continued. Seville need not fear she will lose prestige should she drop them, that the tourists will no longer flock to her each spring; she is only beginning to be known for having a winter climate surpassing that of Rome and Naples; _pasos_ or not, visitors will inevitably increase.