Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

That evening, in spite of the voluptuous images which the Alcazar had called to my mind, I was sufficiently calm to contemplate the beauty of the women of Seville without fleeing to the arms of the consul for safety. I do not believe that the women of any other country are so bewitching as the fair Andalusians, not only because they tempt one into all sorts of mischief, but because they seem to have been made to be seized and carried away, so small, graceful, plump, elastic, and soft are they. Their little feet could both be put easily into one's coat-pocket, and with an arm one could lift them by the waist like babies, and by the mere pressure of the finger could bend them like willow wands. To their natural beauty they add the art of walking and looking in a way to turn one's head. They fly along, glide, and walk with a wave-like motion, and in a single moment, as they pass, they show a little foot, make you admire an arm or a slender waist, reveal two rows of the whitest teeth, and dart at you a long veiled glance that melts and dies in your own; and on they go with an air of triumph, certain of having turned your blood topsy-turvy.

To form an idea of the beauty of the women of the people and the picturesqueness of their dress you must go by day to visit the tobacco-manufactory, which is one of the largest establishments of the kind in Europe and employs not less than five thousand hands. The building faces the vast gardens of the duke of Montpensier: almost all of the women work in three immense rooms, each divided into three parts by as many rows of pillars. The first view is astounding: there, all at once, eight hundred girls present themselves before one's eyes in groups of five or six, sitting around work-tables as close as possible, the farthest indistinct and the last scarcely visible; all of them young and a few children--eight hundred jet-black heads and eight hundred brown faces from every province of Andalusia, from Jaen to Cadiz, from Granada to Seville!

One hears a buzzing as of a square full of people. The walls, from one door to the other, in all three of the rooms are lined with skirts, shawls, kerchiefs, and scarfs; and--a very curious thing--that entire mass of garments, which would fill to overflowing a hundred old-clothes shops, presents two predominant colors, in two continuous lines one above the other, like the stripes of a very long flag--the black of the shawls above, and the red mixed with white, purple, and yellow--so that one seems to see an immense costumer's shop or an immense ball-room where the ballet-dancers, in order to be free, have hung on the walls every part of their dress which it is not absolutely necessary to wear. The girls put on these dresses when they go out, and wear old clothes to work in; but white and red predominate in those dresses also. The heat is insupportable, consequently they lighten their clothing as much as possible, and among those five thousand one will scarcely find fifty whose arms and shoulders the visitor may not contemplate at his pleasure, without counting the extraordinary cases which present themselves suddenly as one passes from room to room, behind the doors and columns, and around the distant corners. There are some very beautiful faces, and even those who are not beautiful have something about them which attracts one's glance and lingers in the memory--the complexion, the eyes, the brow, or the smile. Many of them, especially so-called _Gitane_, are as dark as dark mulattos and have protruding lips; others have eyes so large that a faithful picture of them would be considered a monstrous exaggeration; the greater part are small and well-formed, and all have a rose or carnation or some sort of wild flower in their hair. They are paid in proportion to the work they do, and the most skilful and industrious earn as much as three francs per day; the lazy ones--_las holgazanas_--sleep with their arms crossed on the table and their heads resting on their arms; mothers are working, and swinging a leg to which is bound a cord that rocks the cradle. From the cigar-room one passes to the cigarette-room, and from it to the box-factory, and from the box-factory to the packing-room, and in them all one sees the red skirts, black hair, and fine eyes. In each of those rooms how many stories of love, jealousy, despair, and misery! On leaving the factory one seems for some time to see black eyes in every direction regarding him with a thousand varying expressions of curiosity, indifference, sympathy, cheerfulness, sadness, and drowsiness.

The same day I went to see the Museum of Painting. The Seville gallery does not contain very many paintings, but those few are worth a great museum. There are the masterpieces of Murillo, and among them his immortal _Saint Anthony of Padua_, which is said to be the most divinely inspired of his works, and one of the greatest achievements of human genius. I visited the gallery in the company of Señor Gonzalo Segovia and Ardizone, one of the most illustrious young men of Seville, and I wish he were here beside my table at this moment to testify in a foot-note that when my eyes first lit upon the picture I seized his arm and uttered a cry.

Only once in my life have I felt such a profound stirring of my soul as that which I felt on seeing this picture. It was one beautiful summer night: the sky was bright with stars, and the vast plain lay extended before me from the high place where I stood in deep silence. One of the noblest creatures I have ever met in my life was at my side. A few hours before we had been reading some pages from one of Humboldt's works: we looked at the sky and talked of the motion of the earth, the millions of worlds, and the infinite with those suppressed tones as of distant voices which one unconsciously uses in speaking of such things in the silent night. Finally we were still, and each, with eyes fixed on the heavens, gave himself up to fancies. I know not by what train of thought I was led; I know not what mysterious chain of emotions was formed in my heart; I know not what I saw or felt or dreamed. I only know that suddenly a veil before my mind seemed to be rent asunder; I felt within me a perfect assurance of that which hitherto I had longed for rather than believed; my heart expanded with a feeling of supreme joy, angelic peace, and limitless hope; a flood of scalding tears suddenly filled my eyes, and, grasping the hand of my friend, which sought my own, I cried from the depths of my soul, "It is true! It is true!" and began to cry like a child.

The _Saint Anthony of Padua_ brought back the emotions of that evening. The saint is kneeling in the middle of his cell; the child Jesus in a nebulous halo of white vaporous light, drawn by the power of his prayer, is descending into his arms. Saint Anthony, rapt in ecstasy, throws himself forward with all his power of body and soul, his head thrown back, radiant with an expression of supreme joy. So great was the shock which this picture gave me that when I had looked at it a few moments I was as exhausted as if I had visited a vast gallery, and a trembling seized me and continued so long as I remained in that room.

Afterward I saw the other great paintings of Murillo--a _Conception_, a _Saint Francis embracing Christ_, another version of _Saint Anthony_, and others to the number of twenty or more, among them the famous and enchanting _Virgin of the Napkin_, painted by Murillo upon a real napkin in the Capuchin convent of Seville to gratify a desire of a lay brother who was serving him: it is one of his most delicate creations, in which is revealed all the magic of his inimitable coloring--but none of these paintings, although they are objects of wonder to all the artists of the world, drew my heart or thoughts from that divine _Saint Anthony_.

There are also in this gallery paintings by the two Herreras, Pacheco, Alonzo Cano, Pablo de Cespedes, Valdes, Mulato, a servant of Murillo who ably imitated his style, and finally the large famous painting of the _Apotheosis of Saint Thomas of Aquinas_, by Francesco Zurbaran, one of the most eminent artists of the seventeenth century, called the Spanish Caravaggio, and possibly his superior in truth and moral sentiment,--a powerful naturalist, a strong colorist, and an inimitable painter of austere friars, macerated saints, brooding hermits, and terrible priests, and an unsurpassed poet of penitence, solitude, and meditation.

After seeing the picture-gallery Señor Gonzalo Segovia led me through a succession of narrow streets to the street _Francos_, one of the principal ways of the city, and stopped me in front of a little draper's shop, saying with a laugh, "Look! Doesn't this shop make you think of something?"

"Nothing at all," I replied.

"Look at the number."

"It is number fifteen: what of it?"

"Oh! plague on it!" exclaimed my amiable guide,

"'Number fifteen,
On the left-hand side'!"

"The shop of the _Barber of Seville_!" I cried.

"Precisely!" he responded--"the shop of the Barber of Seville; but be on your guard when you speak of it in Italy; do not take your oath, for traditions are often misleading, and I would not assume the responsibility of confirming a fact of such importance."

At that moment the merchant came to the door of the shop, and, divining why we were there, laughed and said, "_No esta_" ("Figaro is not here"), and with a gracious bow he retired.

Then I besought Señor Gonzalo to show me a _patio_, one of those enchanting _patios_ which as I looked at them from the street made me imagine so many delightful things. "I want to see at least one," I said to him--"to penetrate once into the midst of those mysteries, to touch the walls, to assure myself that it is a real thing and not a vision."

My desire was at once fulfilled: we entered the _patio_ of one of his friends. Señor Gonzalo told the servant the object of our visit, and we were left alone. The house was only two stories in height. The _patio_ was no larger than an ordinary room, but all marble and flowers, and a little fountain in the middle, and paintings and statues around, and from roof to roof an awning which sheltered it from the sun. In a corner was a work-table, and here and there one saw low chairs and little benches whereon a few moments previously had doubtless rested the feet of some fair Andalusian, who at that moment was watching us from between the slats of a blind. I examined everything minutely, as I would have done in a house abandoned by the fairies: I sat down, closed my eyes, imagined I was the master, then arose, wet my hand with the spray of the fountain, touched a slender column, went to the door, picked a flower, raised my eyes to the windows, laughed, sighed, and said, "How happy must those be who live here!" At that moment I heard a low laugh, and saw two great black eyes flash behind a blind and instantly disappear. "Truly," I said, "I did not believe that it was possible to still live so poetically upon this earth. And to think that you enjoy these houses all your life! and that you have the inclination to rack your brains about politics!"

Señor Gonzalo showed me the secrets of the house. "All this furniture," said he, "these paintings, and these vases of flowers disappear on the approach of autumn and are taken to the second story, which is the living apartment from autumn to spring. When summer comes beds, wardrobes, tables, chairs--everything is brought down to the rooms on the ground floor, and here the family sleep and eat, receive their friends, and do their work, among the flowers and marbles to the murmur of the fountain. And at night they have the doors open, and from the sleeping-rooms one can see the _patio_ flooded with moonlight and smell the fragrance of roses."

"Oh, stop!" I exclaimed, "stop, Señor Gonzalo! Have pity on strangers!" And, laughing heartily, we both went out on our way to see the famous _Casa de Pilato_.

As we were passing along a lonely little street I looked in a window of a hardware-shop and saw an assortment of knives so long, broad, and unusual that I felt a desire to buy one. I entered: twenty were displayed before my eyes, and I had the salesman to open them one by one. As each knife was opened I took a step backward. I do not believe it is possible to imagine an instrument more barbarous and terrifying in appearance than one of them. The handles are of wood, copper, and horn, curved and carved in open patterns, so that one may see through their little pieces of isinglass. The knives open with a sound like a rattle, and out comes a large blade as broad as the palm of your hand, as long as both palms together, and as sharp as a dagger, in the form of a fish, ornamented with red inlaying, which suggests streaks of clotted blood, and adorned with fierce and threatening inscriptions. On the blade of one there will be written in Spanish, _Do not open me without reason, nor shut me without honor_; on another, _Where I strike, all is over_; on a third, _When this snake bites, there is nothing left for the doctor to do_; and other gallantries of the same sort. The proper name of these knives is _navaja_--a word which also has the meaning of razor--and the _navaja_ is the popular duelling weapon. Now it has fallen into disuse, but was at one time held in great honor; there were masters who taught its use, each of whom had his secret blow, and duels were fought in accordance with the rules of chivalry. I bought the most terrible _navaja_ in the shop, and we entered the street again.

The _Casa de Pilato_, held by the Medina-Coeli family, is, after the Alcazar, the most beautiful monument of Moorish architecture in Seville. The name, _Casa de Pilato_, comes from the fact that its founder, Don Enriquez de Ribera, the first marquis of Tarifa, had it built, as the story goes, in imitation of the house of the Roman prætor, which he had seen in Jerusalem, where he went on a pilgrimage. The edifice has a modest exterior, but the interior is marvellous. One first enters a court not less beautiful than the enchanting court of the Alcazar, encircled by two orders of arches, supported by graceful marble columns, forming two very light galleries, one above the other, and so delicate that it seems as if the first puff of wind would cast them into ruins. In the centre is a lovely fountain resting on four marble dolphins and crowned by a bust of Janus. Around the lower part of the walls run brilliant mosaics, and above these every sort of fantastic arabesque, here and there framing beautiful niches containing busts of the Roman emperors. At the four corners of the court the ceilings, the walls, and the doors are carved, embroidered, and covered with flowers and historic tapestries with the delicacy of a miniature. In an old chapel, partly Moorish and partly Gothic in style, and most delicate in form, there is preserved a little column, scarcely more than three feet in height, the gift of Pius V. to a descendant of the founder of the palace, at one time viceroy of Naples: to that column, says the tradition, was bound Jesus of Nazareth to be scourged. This fact, even if it were true, would prove that Pius V. did not believe it in the slightest degree. For he would not lightly have committed the unpardonable mistake of depriving himself of a valuable relic to make a present to the first comer. The entire palace is full of sacred memories. On the first floor the custodian points out a window which corresponds to that by which Peter sat when he denied his Lord, and the little window from which the maid-servant recognized him. From the street one sees another window with a little stone balcony, which represents the exact position of the window where Jesus, wearing the crown of thorns, was shown to the people.

The garden is full of fragments of ancient statuary brought from Italy by that same Don Pedro Afan de Ribera, viceroy of Naples. Among the other fables that are told about this mysterious garden is one to the effect that Don Pedro Afan de Ribera placed in it an urn brought from Italy containing the ashes of the emperor Trajan, and a curious person carelessly struck the urn and overturned it; the emperor's ashes were thus scattered over the grass, and no one has ever succeeded in collecting them. So this august monarch, born at Italica, by a very strange fate has returned to the vicinity of his natal city, not in the very best condition in which to meditate upon its ruins, to tell the truth, but he was near it, at any rate.

In spite of all that I have described, I may say that I did not see Seville, but just commenced to see it. Nevertheless, I shall stop here, because everything must have an end. I pass by the promenaders, the squares, the gates, the libraries, the public buildings, the mansions of the grandees, the gardens and the churches; but allow me to say that, after several days' wandering through Seville from sunrise to sunset, I was obliged to leave the city under the weight of a self-accusing conscience. I did not know which way to turn. I had reached such a condition of weariness that the announcement of a new object to be seen filled me with foreboding rather than pleasure. The good Señor Gonzalo kept up my courage, comforted me, and shortened the journeys with his delightful company, but, nevertheless, I have only a very confused remembrance of all that I saw during those last days.

Seville, although it no longer merits the glorious title of the Spanish Athens, as in the times of Charles V. and Philip II., when it was mother and patron of a large and chosen band of poets and artists, the seat of culture and of the arts in the vast empire of its monarchs, is even yet that one among the cities of Spain, with the exception of Madrid, in which the artistic life is most vigorously maintained, as is evidenced by the number of its men of genius, the liberality of its patrons, and the popular love of the fine arts. It contains a flourishing academy of literature, a society for the protection of the arts, a well-known university, and a colony of scholars and sculptors who enjoy an honorable distinction throughout Spain. But the highest literary fame in Seville belongs to a woman--Catharine Bohl, the author of the novels which bear the name of Fernan Caballero, widely read in Spain and America, translated into almost all the languages of Europe, and known also in Italy (where some of them were published not long since) by every one who at all occupies himself with foreign literature. They are admirable pictures of Andalusian manners, full of truth, passion, and grace, and, above all, possessing a vigor of faith and a religious enthusiasm so fearless and a Christian charity so broad that they would startle and confuse the most skeptical man in the world. Catharine Bohl is a woman who would undergo martyrdom with the firmness and serenity of a Saint Ignatius. The consciousness of her power is revealed in every page: she does not hesitate to defend her religion, and confronts, assails, threatens, and overthrows its enemies; and not only the enemies of religion, but every man and everything that, to use a common expression, conforms to the spirit of the age, for she never forgives the least sin which has been committed from the times of the Inquisition to our own day, and she is more inexorable than the Pope's syllabus. And herein perhaps lies her greatest defect as a writer--that her religious convictions and her invectives are entirely too frequent and grow tiresome, and disgust and prejudice the reader rather than convince him of her own beliefs. But there is not a shadow of bitterness in her heart, and as her books, so is her life, noble, upright, and charitable. In Seville she is revered as a saint. Born in that city, she married early in life, and is now a widow for the third time. Her last husband, who was Spanish ambassador at London, committed suicide, and from that day she has never laid aside her mourning. At the time of my visit she was almost seventy; she had been very beautiful, and her noble, placid face still preserved the impress of beauty. Her father, who was a man of considerable genius and great culture, taught her several languages in early life: she knows Latin thoroughly and speaks Italian, German, and French with admirable facility. At this time, however, she is not writing at all, although the editors and publishers of Europe and America are offering her large sums for her works. But she does not live a life of inactivity. From morning to night she reads all sorts of books, and while she reads she is either knitting or embroidering, for she very firmly believes that her literary studies ought not to take one minute from her feminine employments. She has no children, and lives in a lonely house, the best part of which has been given to a poor family; she spends a great part of her income in charity. A curious trait of her character is her great love of animals: she has her house full of birds, cats, and dogs, and her sensibilities are so delicate that she has never consented to enter a carriage, for fear of seeing the horse beaten on her account. All suffering affects her as if she herself were bearing it: the sight of a blind man or of a sick person or of a cripple of any sort distresses her for an entire day; she cannot close her eyes to sleep unless she has wiped away a tear; she would joyfully forego all her honors to save any unknown person a heartache. Before the Revolution her life was not so isolated: the Montpensier family received her with great honor, and the most illustrious families of Seville vied with each other in entertaining her at their homes: now she lives only among her books and a few friends.

In Moorish times Cordova took the lead in literature and Seville in music. "When a scholar dies at Seville," said Averroes, "and they wish to sell his books, they send them to Cordova; but if a musician dies at Cordova, they send his instruments to Seville to be sold." Now Cordova has lost her literary primacy, and Seville holds first place both in literature and music. Truly the times are past in which a poet by singing of the beauty of a maiden draws around her a crowd of lovers from all parts of the realm, and when one prince envies another simply because a poet has sung in his praise a verse more beautiful than any which the other had inspired, and a caliph rewards the author of a noble hymn by a gift of a hundred camels, a troop of slaves, and a vase of gold--when a happy strophe improvised at an opportune time releases a slave from his chains or saves the life of one condemned to death, and when the musicians are followed through the streets of Seville by a train of monarchs, and the favor of poets is more sought than that of kings, and the lyre is more terrible than the sword. But the people of Seville are always the most poetic people of Spain. The _bon mot_, the word of love, the expression of joy and enthusiasm, fly from their lips with a fascinating spontaneity and grace. The common people of Seville improvise, and talk as though they are singing, gesticulate as if they are declaiming, laugh and play like children. One never grows old at Seville. It is a city where life melts away in a continuous smile, with no other thought than the enjoyment of the beautiful sky, the lovely little houses, and the delightful little gardens. It is the most peaceful city in Spain, and the only one which since the Revolution has not been agitated by those sad political commotions which have stirred the others: politics do not penetrate the surface; the Sevillians are content to make love; all else they take in jest. _Todo lo toman de broma_, say the other Spaniards of the Sevillians; and in truth with that fragrant air, with those little streets like those of an Oriental city, with those fiery little women, why should they trouble themselves? At Madrid they speak ill of them; they say they are vain, false, fickle, and silly. It is jealousy: they envy them their happy indolence, the sympathy which they inspire in strangers, their girls, their poets, their painters, their orators, their Giralda, their Alcazar, their Guadalquivir, their life, and their history. So say the Sevillians, striking their breasts with one hand and puffing into the air a cloud of smoke from the inseparable _cigaritto_; and their lovely little women revenge themselves upon their envious sisters and all the other women in the world, speaking with spiteful pity of long feet, large waists, and dull eyes, that in Andalusia would not receive the honor of a glance or the homage of a sigh. A charming and amiable people, in truth; but, alas! one must look at the reverse side of the medal: superstition reigns and schools are lacking, as is the case throughout all Southern Spain; this is partly their own fault and partly not; but the negative is probably the smaller part.

The day of my departure arrived unexpectedly. It is strange: I remember scarcely any particulars of my life at Seville; it is remarkable if I can tell where I dined, what I talked about with the consul, how I spent the evenings, and why I chose any given day to take my departure. I was not myself; I lived, if I may use the expression, out of myself; all the while I remained in the city I was a little dazed. Apart from the art-gallery and the _patio_ my friend Segovia must have found that I knew very little; and now, I know not why, I think of those days as of a dream. Of no other city are my recollections so vague as of Seville. Even to-day, while I am certain of having been at Saragossa, Madrid, and Toledo, sometimes when I think of Seville a doubt steals upon me. It seems to me like a city much farther away than the most distant boundaries of Spain, and that to journey there again I must travel months and months, cross unknown continents and wide seas, among people totally different from our own. I think of the streets of Seville, of certain little squares and certain houses, as I would think of the spots on the moon. Sometimes the image of that city passes before my eyes like a white figure, and disappears almost before I can grasp it with my mind--sometimes in a breath of air, at certain hours of the day, at a garden-gate; in humming a song which I heard a boy sing on the steps of the Giralda. I cannot explain this secret to myself; I think of Seville as of a city which I have still to see, and I enjoy looking at the prints and thumbing the books which I bought there, for they are tangible things that convince me of my visit. A month ago I received a letter from Segovia which said, "Come back to us." It gave me untold pleasure, but at the same time I laughed as if he had written, "Make a voyage to Pekin." It is for this very reason that Seville is dearer to me than all the other cities of Spain; I love it as I might love a beautiful unknown woman who, crossing a mysterious wood, might look my way and throw me a flower. How often in the theatre or at the café, when a friend shakes me and asks, "What are you thinking about?" I am obliged to leave the little room of Maria de Padilla to return to him, or a boat that is gliding along in the shade of the Christina plane trees, or Figaro's shop, or the vestibule of a _patio_ full of flowers, fountains, and lights.

I embarked on a boat of the Segovia Company, near the Torre del Oro, at an hour when Seville is wrapped in deep sleep and a burning sun covers it with a flood of light. I remember that a few moments before the boat started a young man came on board in search of me, and gave me a letter from Gonzalo Segovia, containing a sonnet which I still cherish as one of my most precious mementos of Seville. On the boat there was a company of Spanish singers, an English family, some laboring-men, and babies. The captain, being a good Andalusian, had a cheery word for everybody. I soon began a conversation with him. My friend Gonzalo was a son of the proprietor of the line, and we talked of the Segovia family, of Seville, the sea, and a thousand pleasant things. Ah! the poor man was far from thinking that a few days later the unlucky ship would founder in the midst of the sea and bring him to such a terrible end! It was the _Guadaira_, that was lost a short distance from Marseilles by the bursting of the boiler on the sixteenth day of June, 1872.

At three o'clock the boat started for Cadiz.

CADIZ.

That was the most delightful evening of all my journey.

A little while after the ship had commenced to move there sprang up one of those gentle breezes which played with one as an infant plays with one's cravat or a lock of one's hair, and from stem to stern there was a sound of the voices of women and children, like that which one hears among a group of friends at the first crack of the whip announcing their departure for a merry outing. All the passengers gathered at the stern in the shade of a gayly-colored awning like a Chinese pavilion: some were sitting on coils of rope, others were stretched at full length on the benches, others were leaning against the rail--every one looked back in the direction of the Torre del Oro to enjoy the famous and enchanting spectacle of Seville as it faded away in the distance. Some of the women had not yet dried the tears of parting, and some of the children were still a little frightened by the sound of the engine. And some ladies were still quarrelling with the porters for abusing their baggage; but in a few moments all was serene again, and the passengers began to peel oranges, light cigars, pass little flasks of liquor, converse with their unknown neighbors, sing and laugh, and in a quarter of an hour we were all friends.

The boat glided along as smoothly as a gondola over the still, limpid waters, which reflected the white dresses of the ladies like a mirror, and the breeze brought the delightful fragrance from the orange-groves of the villas scattered along the shore. Seville was hidden behind her circle of gardens, and we saw only an immense mass of trees of vivid green, and above them the black pile of the cathedral and the rose-colored Giralda surmounted by its statue flaming like a tongue of fire. As the distance widened the cathedral appeared grander and more majestic, as if it were following the vessel and gaining upon her: now, although still following, it seemed to retire a great way from the shore; now it would seem to be spanning the river; one moment it would appear suddenly to return to its place; a moment later it looked so close that we suspected the boat had turned back. The Guadalquivir wound along in short curves, and as the boat turned this way and that Seville appeared and disappeared, now peeping out in one place as if it had stolen beyond its boundaries, now raising its head suddenly behind a wood, gleaming like a snowclad mountain, now revealing some white streaks here and there amid the verdure, and suddenly disappearing from view and performing all sorts of fantastic wiles, like a coquettish woman. Finally it disappeared and we saw it no more: the cathedral alone remained. Then every one turned to look at the shore. We seemed to be sailing on the lake of a garden. Here was a hillside clothed with cypresses, here a hilltop all covered with flowers, yonder a village extending along the shore, and under the garden trellises and along the terraces of the villas sat ladies looking at us with spy-glasses; and here and there were peasants' families in brightly-colored dresses, sail-boats; and naked boys who plunged into the water and turned sommersaults, frisked about, shouted, and waved their hands toward the ladies on the boat, who covered their faces with their fans. Some miles from Seville we met three steamboats, one after the other. The first came upon us so suddenly at a turn of the river that, having had no experience in that sort of navigation, I was afraid, for a moment, that we should not have time to avoid a collision; the two boats almost grazed each other in passing, and the passengers of each saluted each other and threw across oranges and cigars, and charged each other with messages to be borne to Cadiz or Seville.

My fellow-voyagers were almost all Andalusians, and so, after an hour of conversation, I knew them from first to last as well as if we had all been friends from infancy. Every one instantly told every one else, whether he wanted to know it or not, who he was, his age, occupation, and where he was going, and one even went so far as to tell how many sweethearts he had and how many pesetas were in his purse. I was taken for a singer; and this is not strange if one considers that in Spain the people think three-fourths of the Italians are trained to sing, dance, or declaim. One gentleman, noticing that I had an Italian book in my hand, asked me, point-blank, "Where did you leave the company?"

"What company?" I demanded.

"Weren't you singing with Fricci at the Zarzuela?"

"I am sorry, but I have never appeared on the stage."

"Well, I must say, then, that you and the second tenor look as much alike as two drops of water."

"You don't say so?"

"Pray excuse me."

"It's of no consequence."

"But you are an Italian?"

"Yes."

"Do you sing?"

"I am sorry, but I do not sing."

"How strange! To judge by your throat and breast, I should have said that you must have a splendid tenor voice."

I put my hand to my chest and neck, and replied, "It may be so; I will try--one never knows. I have two of the necessary qualifications: I am an Italian and have the throat of a tenor; the voice ought to follow."

At this point the prima donna of the company, who had overheard the dialogue, entered the conversation, and after her the entire company:

"Is the gentleman an Italian?"

"At your service, madam."

"I ask the question because I wish him to do me a favor. What is the meaning of those short verses from _Il Trovatore_ which run--

"Non può nemmeno un Dio
Donna rapirti a me."
(Not even a god can steal my lady from me.)

"Is the lady married?"

They all began to laugh.

"Yes," replied the prima donna; "but why do you ask me that?"

"Because ... 'not even a god can steal you from me' is what your husband ought to say, if he has two good eyes in his head, every morning when he rises and every night when he goes to bed."

The others laughed, but to the prima donna this imaginary presumption on the part of her husband in affirming that he was secure even against a god seemed too extravagant, possibly because she knew that she had not always been sufficiently wary in her regard for men; and so she scarcely deigned by so much as a smile to show that she had understood my compliment. She at once asked the meaning of another verse, and after her the baritone, and after the baritone the tenor, and after the tenor the second lady, and so on, until for a little while I did nothing but translate poor Italian verses into worse Spanish prose, to the great satisfaction of some of them, who for the first time were able to repeat intelligently a little of what they had so often sung with an air of perfect knowledge. When every one had learned as much as he wished to know, the conversation came to a close, and I stood talking a little while with the baritone, who hummed me an air from the _Zarzuela_; then I attached myself to one of the chorus, who told me that the tenor was making love to the prima donna; then I went off with the tenor, who told me about the baritone's wife; then I talked with the prima donna, who said disagreeable things about the whole company; but they were all good friends, and when they met, as they walked about the boat and gathered under the awning, the men pulled each other's beards and the women kissed each other, and one and all exchanged glances and smiles which revealed secret understandings. Some ran through the gamut here, some hummed yonder, others practised trills in a corner, and others again tried a guttural _do_ that ended in a wheezing sound in the throat; and meanwhile they all talked at once about a thousand trifles.

Finally, the bell sounded and we rushed headlong to the table, like so many officials invited to a spread at the unveiling of a monument. At this dinner, amid the cries and songs of all those people, I drank for the first time an unmixed glass of that terrible wine of Xeres whose wonders are sung in the four corners of the earth. I had scarcely swallowed it before I seemed to feel a spark run through all my veins, and my head burned as if it was full of sulphur. All the others drank, and all were filled with unrestrained mirth and became irresistibly loquacious; the prima donna began to talk in Italian, the tenor in French, the baritone in Portuguese, the others in dialect, and I in every tongue; and there were toasts and snatches of song, shouts, arch glances, clasping of hands above table and the kicking of feet below, and declarations of good fellowship exchanged on all sides, like the personalities in Parliament when the opposing factions join battle. After dinner we all went on deck, flushed and in great spirits, breathless and enveloped in a cloud of smoke from our cigarettes, and then, in the light of the moon, whose silvery rays gleamed on the wide river and covered the hillsides and the groves with limpid light, we began again a noisy conversation, and after the conversation there was singing, not only the trifling airs of _Zarzuela_, but passages from operas, with solos, duets, trios, and choruses, with appropriate gestures and stage strides, diversified with declamations from the poets, stories, and anecdotes, hearty laughter, and tumultuous applause; finally, tired and breathless, we were all silent, and some fell asleep with upturned faces, others went to lie down under cover, and the prima donna seated herself in a corner to look at the moon. The tenor was snoring. I profited by the occasion to go and have an aria from the _Zarzuela_--_El Sargento Federico_--sung to me in a low voice. The courteous Andalusian did not wait to be pressed: she sang, but suddenly she was silent and hid her face. I looked at her: she was weeping. I asked her the cause of her distress, and she answered, sadly, "I am thinking of a perjury." Then she broke into a laugh and began to sing again. She had a melodious, flexible voice, and sang with a feeling of gentle sadness. The sky was all studded with stars, and the boat glided so smoothly through the water that it scarcely seemed to be moving; and I thought of the gardens of Seville, of the near African shore, and of the dear one waiting for me in Italy, and my eyes too were wet, and when the lady stopped singing, I said, "Sing on, for--

'Mortal tongue cannot express
That which I felt within my breast....'"

At dawn the boat was just entering the ocean; the river was very wide. The right bank, scarcely visible in the distance, stretched along like a tongue of land, beyond which shone the waters of the sea. A moment later the sun rose above the horizon, and the vessel left the river. Then there unfolded before my eyes a sight that could not be described if it were possible to join poetry, painting, and music in one supreme art--a spectacle whose magnificence and enchantment I believe not even Dante could describe with his grandest images, nor Titian with his most brilliant colors, nor Rossini with his most perfect harmonies, nor even all three of them together. The sky was a miracle of sapphire light unflecked by a cloud, and the sea was so beautiful that it seemed like an immense carpet of shimmering silk; the sun was shining on the crests of the little ripples caused by a light breeze, and it seemed as if they were tipped with amethyst. The sea was full of reflections and luminous bands of light, and in the distance were streaks of silver, with here and there great white sails, like the trailing wings of gigantic fallen angels. I have never seen such brilliancy of color, such splendor of light, such freshness, such transparency, such limpid water and sky. It seemed like a daybreak of creation, which the fancy of poets had pictured so pure and effulgent that our dawns are only pale reflections in comparison. It was more than Nature's awakening and the recurring stir of life: it was a hallelujah, a triumph, a new birth of creation, growing into the infinite by a second inspiration of God.

I went below deck to get my spyglass, and when I returned Cadiz was in sight.

The first impression which it made upon me was a feeling of doubt whether it was a city or not. I first laughed, then turned toward my fellow-traveller with the air of one seeking to be assured that he is not deceived. Cadiz is like an island of chalk. It is a great white spot in the midst of the sea, without a cloud, without a black line, without a shadow--a white spot as clear and pure as a hilltop covered with untrodden snow, standing out against a sky of beryl and turquoise in the midst of a vast flooded plain. A long, narrow neck of land unites it to the continent; on all other sides it is surrounded by the sea, like a boat just ready to sail bound to the shore only by a cable. As we approached, the forms of the campaniles, the outlines of the houses, and the openings of the streets became clear, and everything seemed whiter, and, however much I looked through my spyglass, I could not have discovered the smallest spot in that whiteness, either on a building near the harbor or in the farthest suburbs. We entered the port, where there were but a few ships and those a great way apart. I stepped into a boat without even taking my valise with me, for I was obliged to leave for Malaga that same evening, and so eager was I to see the city that when the boat came to the bank, I jumped too soon and fell to the ground like a corpse, although, alas! I still felt the pains of a living body.

Cadiz is the whitest city in the world; and it is of no use to contradict me by saying that I have not seen every other city, for my common sense tells me that a city whiter than this, which is superlatively and perfectly white, cannot exist. Cordova and Seville cannot be compared with Cadiz: they are as white as a sheet, but Cadiz is as white as milk. To give an idea of it, one could not do better than to write the word "white" a thousand times with a white pencil on blue paper, and make a note on the margin: "Impressions of Cadiz." Cadiz is one of the most extravagant and graceful of human caprices: not only the outer walls of the houses are white, but the stairs are white, the courts are white, the shop-walls are white, the stones are white, the pilasters are white, the most secret and darkest corners of the poorest houses and the loneliest streets are white; everything is white from roof to cellar wherever the tip of a brush can enter, even to the holes, cracks, and birds' nests. In every house there is a pile of chalk and lime, and every time the eagle eye of the inmates spies the least spot the brush is seized and the spot covered. Servants are not taken into families unless they know how to whitewash. A pencil-scratch on a wall is a scandalous thing, an outrage upon the public peace, an act of vandalism: you might walk through the entire city, look behind all the doors, and poke your nose into the very holes, and you would find white, only and always and eternally.

But, for all this, Cadiz does not in the least resemble the other Andalusian cities. Its streets are long and straight, and the houses are high, and lack the _patios_ of Cordova and Seville. But, although the appearance is different, the city does not appear less interesting and pleasant to the eye of the stranger. The streets are straight, but narrow, and, moreover, they are very long, and many of them cross the entire city, and so one can see at the end, as through the crack in a door, a slender strip of sky, which makes it seem as if the city was built on the summit of a mountain cut on all sides in regular channels: moreover, the houses have a great many windows, and, as at Burgos, every window is provided with a sort of glass balcony which rises in tiers from story to story, so that in many streets the houses are completely covered with glass, and one sees scarcely any traces of the walls. It seems like walking through a passage in an immense museum. Here and there, between one house and the next, rise the graceful fronds of a palm; in every square there is a luxuriant mass of verdure, and at all the windows bunches of grass and bouquets of flowers.

Really, I had been far from imagining that Cadiz could be so gay and smiling--that terrible, ill-fated Cadiz, burned by the English in the sixteenth century, bombarded at the end of the eighteenth, devastated by the pestilence, hostess of the fleets of Trafalgar, the seat of the revolutionary council during the War of Independence, the theatre of the horrible butchery of the Revolution of 1820, the target of the French bombs in 1823, the standard-bearer of the Revolution which hurled the Bourbons from the throne,--Cadiz always restless and turbulent and first of all to raise the battle-cry. But of such calamities and such struggles there remain only some cannon-balls half buried in the walls, for over all the traces of destruction has passed the inexorable brush, covering every dishonor with a white veil. And as it is with the latest wars, so too there remains not a trace of the Phœnicians who founded the city, nor of the Carthaginians and Romans who enlarged and beautified it, unless one wishes to consider as a trace the tradition which says, "Here rose a temple to Hercules," "There rose a temple to Saturn." But time has done a worse thing than to deprive Cadiz of her ancient monuments: it has stolen away her commerce and her riches since Spain lost her possessions in America, and now Cadiz lies there inert on her solitary rock, waiting in vain for the thousand ships which once came with flags and festoons to offer her the tribute of the New World.

I had a letter of introduction to the Italian consul, and after receiving it he courteously took me to the top of a tower from which I was able to get a bird's-eye view of the city. It was a novel sight and a very lively surprise: seen from above, Cadiz is white, entirely and perfectly white, just as it appears from the sea; there is not a roof in all the city; every house is covered on top by a terrace surrounded by a low whitewashed wall; on almost every terrace rises a little white tower, which is surmounted, in its turn, by another smaller terrace or by a little cupola or sort of sentry-box: everything is white; all these little cupolas, these pinnacles, and these towers, which give the city a very odd and uneven appearance, gleam and stand out white against the vivid blue of the sea. One's view extends over the entire length of the isthmus which connects Cadiz to the main land, embraces a far-off strip of distant coast whitened by the cities of Puerto Real and Puerto Santa Maria, dotted with villages, churches, and villas, and includes also the port and the clear and a very beautiful sky which vies with the sea in transparency and light. I could not look enough at that strange city. On closing my eyes it appeared as if covered by an immense sheet. Every house seemed to have been built for an astronomical observatory. The entire population, in case the sea should inundate the city, as in ancient times, might gather on the terraces and remain there in perfect ease, saving the fright.

I was told that a few years ago, on the occasion of some eclipse of the sun, this very spectacle was witnessed: the seventy thousand inhabitants of Cadiz all ascended to the terraces to watch the phenomenon. The city changed its perfect whiteness for a thousand colors; every terrace was thick with heads; one saw at a single glance, quarter after quarter, and finally the entire population: a low murmur rose to heaven like the roar of the sea, and a great movement of arms, fans, and spy-glasses, pointing upward, made it seem as if the people were awaiting the descent of some angel from the solar sphere. At a certain moment there was a profound silence: when the phenomenon was over the entire population gave a shout, which sounded like a clap of thunder, and a few moments later the city was white again.