Part 9
The coolness of the lofty and umbrageous aisles within is not penetrated by the fiercest summer heats; but their religious twilight, though inciting to a devout and prayerful sentiment, wraps in obscurity the crowded works of art, the emblazoned _retablos_, the paintings of Murillo, Campaña, and Morales, and the costly ornaments bestowed upon the high altar, as well as those of some thirty side-chapels. In the central nave, before a shrine at the choir-back, lies the tomb of Ferdinand, son of Christopher Columbus. The colossal form of another Christopher, the saint, lifts itself up the wall to a height of thirty-two feet, near the Gate of the Exchange. Whoever looks upon St. Christopher, to him no harm shall come during that day; hence this worthy is a common object in Spanish cathedrals, and always painted so large that no one who diligently attends mass can possibly miss seeing him. A curious relic on the Chapel Royal altar is the Battle Virgin, a small ivory image which King Ferdinand the Sainted always carried in war firmly fixed on his saddle-bow. There, too, the King himself, embalmed, is preserved in a chiselled silver case, to be uncovered and shown three times a year with great pomp of military music. A life-size Virgin with movable joints and spun-gold hair watches over him, but did not prevent his crown from being stolen a few years ago. Not far away Murillo's San Antonio hangs, the chief figure in which was also stolen, being cut out in 1874, as many who read this will remember, and carried to New York, where it was recovered. Innumerable other works and wonders there are, and the sacristies contain great value of goldsmiths' products; but, unless it be made a subject of long artistic study, the fundamental charm of the cathedral consists in its general aspects, its mysterious perspectives, its proportions so simple and grandiose; the isolated pictures formed at almost any point by jewelled and candle-lit chapels sparkling dimly through a permanent dusk, rainbowed here and there by the light from old stained windows.
From the Giralda, which is mounted by inclined planes in place of stairs, one looks down upon the glorious building as if it were something belonging to a lower and different world. All around, beyond, the mazy city flattens itself out in a confusion of white walls and tiled roofs, that look like the armored backs of scaly monsters huddled sluggishly in the powerful sunshine, with impossible streets among them reduced to mere thin lines of shadow. The tawny river touches it; palaces and gardens and abandoned monasteries fringe it. Quite near you see the Tower of Gold--a surviving outwork of the Moorish defences--which was formerly coated with orange-colored tiles on the outside, while the inside furnished a repository for treasure brought from the New World. A crenellated Moorish fortification rises up dreamily at one point, but finding itself out of date, abruptly subsides again. Farther out are the seven suburbs, including the gypsy and sailor quarter, the Triana; and then the plains stretch into an immense area of olive, gold, and white, reaching to mountains on the north and east. A multitude of doves inhabit the spire, and there is almost always a hawk sailing above it, higher than anything else under the cloudless sky. At the base lives the bell-ringer, through whose stone-paved dining-room and nursery, filled with his family, we had to pass in order to ascend. Once, as we stood toward sunset in the high gallery where the bells are hung in rectangular or arched apertures, we heard the _repique_ sounding the Angelus. It was a furious explosion of metallic resonance.
Twenty bells on swinging beams, that throw the echoing mouths outward through the openings, and two fixed in place within, of which Santa Maria--profanely called The Fat One--is the largest: such is the battery at command. They are not all used at once, however, for the Angelus. The ringer and his two sons were satisfied with touching up Santa Catalina (of a tone peculiarly deep and acceptable), St. John the Baptist, San José, and one or two others. The whole brazen family have been duly baptized, among them being San Laureano and San Isidoro, named after the special patrons of Sevilla. One after another their tongues rolled forth a deafening roar, in a systematic disorder of thunderous tones, while the chief ringer went about unconcernedly with a smouldering cigarette in his lips. One of his sons, after uncoiling the twisted rope around the beam of San Laureano, thus getting it into violent motion, watched his chance, sprung on to the beam, agile as a cat, and stood there while it rocked, the bell under him swinging out at each turn, over the open square below. It was three hundred feet, down to the pavement, and the least slip would have sent him down to it like a handful of dirt. His conception of what would please us, nevertheless, led him thoroughly to unnerve us by repeating the performance several times.
"Why don't the high-priest, or whatever he is, go on and finish up this church?" asked Whetstone of the guide. "Seems to me it's about time."
"The priest? He don't want to," was Vincent's answer, given with a movement of the fingers meant to imply the receiving of money. "It make too good excuse."
Our conductor, who I am sure was a sceptic, went on to declare that within the last ten years ninety thousand dollars had been left by will for carrying on the unfinished portion of the cathedral, but as yet no movement to begin the work had been made. "Where all that money go?" he asked, innocent curiosity overspreading his features, while his eye gleamed with hidden intelligence.
"What do the people think of the priests?" one of us asked.
"The chimneys[7] will find out some time," he replied; adding, in the proverbial strain common with Spaniards: "When the river comes down from the mountains, it brings stones."
"By the river, you mean revolution? But you've had that before."
The conclusive answer to this was a maxim borrowed from the ring: "The fifth bull is never a bad one" (meaning, "Success comes to those who wait").
Our guide's English was put to a severe strain in the Alcazar, a palace largely Oriental, with interiors that outshine the Alhambra in resplendent color and gilding. There is, in particular, one round-domed ceiling constructed with an intricacy of interdependent supports, cones, truncations, dropping cusps, which is counterpoint made plastic; and in its inverted cup-like cysts the burnished gold glows like clotted honey. But, for all that, it does not equal the matchless Alhambra in arrangement, variety, or poetic surroundings. The memory of King Pedro the Cruel is closely connected with this Alcazar. From it he used to make night sallies into the town, by means of what Vincent termed a "soup-tureen passage," which brought him up through a trap-door somewhere in the thick of his subjects. Pedro, who lived in the fourteenth century, was a monarch of a severely playful disposition. He used to have the heads of people that were obnoxious to him cut off, and hung up over the lintel of his dressing-room door, where he could look at them while he was putting in his shirt-studs, or whenever he felt bored. In the extensive gardens, half Eastern and half mediæval, behind the palace, among the box and myrtle planted in forms of heraldic devices, among the palms and terraces and fountains, there run long paths, secretly perforated in places for fine jets of water. These are the traces of a still more ingenious amusement invented by Pedro. From a place of concealment he would watch until the ladies of the court, when promenading, had got directly over one of his underground--I mean "soup-tureen"--fountains, then he would turn a faucet, and drench them with a shower-bath from below.
There are other palaces in Sevilla, of which the Duke of Montpensier's San Telmo is the chief, and a model of uninteresting magnificence, aside from the valuable collection of old Spanish masters which it contains. 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 surpassed 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.
But the long succession of apartments through which the visitor is ushered suggests no association 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 title, "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 class, 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.
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 _repoussés_ 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 cock 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 Passion-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 passes 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 señor? 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 _pañuelos_ 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 God 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 _crèche_ 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 astonishing 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 _tête-à-têtes_.
Every house is, furthermore, provided with a _patio_. The façades, 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 space.
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 institution. 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 assertion, but at any rate the tombstone tries hard _not_ to lie.
Fashionable 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 unobtrusively: 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.
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 assassination has been frequent in these narrow windings! Once astray in them, that would be the easiest way out.