Chapter II: Part 2

With a light, graceful step the girl walked to the edge of the cliff. A straggling path led down to the beach where an old, patched boat lay on its side. On a shelf of clean sand, below a tiny, ill-kept kitchen garden, lay an elderly man dressed in good black clothes--it was Sunday. The girl, evidently his daughter, called him to come in, the sun had gone down, he would catch cold. The old fellow obstinately refused to move; he was very comfortable where he was. Then, seeing us, he scrambled to his feet:

“Olá, olá! Engerlish, Engerlish!” he hailed us gleefully, waving an arm over his disreputable head. Two grave men of his own class, who passed at that moment, reproved him sternly, but he was in the incorrigibly merry stage and continued to wave and shout:

“Engerlish, Engerlish! How much? Very dear, goddam.”

“This is my third visit to Spain,” said J., “and that is the first drunken man I have seen even here.”

“_Claro_,” said Don Jaime, “we are not afflict with that vice of drunkenness.”

A rusty brown water spaniel, lying near the old drunkard, rose, yawned, stretched itself fore and aft, and sniffed at Patsy’s boots.

“Notice where the hair is worn off his back?” Patsy murmured, taking a burr out of the dog’s long, flapping ear. “A strap has done that--a strap, I suspect, that fastens together two little water-tight kegs filled with tobacco from Gibraltar. Smuggler! Is the old fellow your partner? Where’s the entrance to the smuggler’s cave? Don, we’ve discovered a _contrabandista’s_ den!”

“May be!” laughed Don Jaime.

The spaniel lost interest in us and sat down to search for fleas. The girl had persuaded her father to come indoors. She supported him as he staggered towards the house.

“I’m off; it must mortify her to have us see him.” Patsy strode ahead; we followed. Soon the fierce, prickly blades of the blue cactus hid the house from view.

“A pretty gel, not?” was the Don’s comment.

“I wonder what her name is?” said Patsy. “Dolores, Pepita? It was worth the price of the journey just to see her face!” He was silent during the rest of the walk, keeping well ahead of us and singing snatches of an old song:

“_vous connaissez que j’ai por mie_
_une Andalouse a l’oeil lutin----_”

We left Algeciras before daylight for Ronda. If the Spaniard sleeps late at home, on his travels he must be an early bird,--the trains all seem to start between midnight and cockcrow. Don Jaime remained behind. Some night, he explained, when he felt particularly fit, he would omit going to bed; otherwise he must pass all his life in Algeciras; to get up in time for that hobgoblin train was not possible.

Across the bay we could make out the faint silhouette of Gibraltar against the ashen sky, a black lion asleep under the pallid day-star. The swift-coming dawn little by little transformed it to a gray lion dormant on an amethyst sea. Long after the great caved mountain was lost to sight, a distant growl shook the air.

“Morning gunfire at the Rock,” said Patsy, “that’s the last we shall hear of the British Lion for some time.”

Sunrise came while we were in the heart of a dark forest. The hoary old trees had mighty, wide-spreading boughs, covered thick with small, gray-green leaves like the ilex; the trunks were old and frail--some of them mere hollow shells that might have housed a dryad or a satyr. They stood well apart from each other, the undergrowth and dead wood carefully trimmed away from their roots.

“See how well cared for the forest patriarchs are,” said Patsy. “They must be kept alive as long as possible, like some old people, because they are the main support of the community.”

Gold-tipped arrows of sunlight now began to pierce the thick green shadows of the forest, and striking the old trunks and the heavy lower branches brought out their wonderful tints.

“Look at those gorgeous rainbow trees! See the colors,--mother of pearl, carmine, violet, lavender,--what does it mean?” I cried.

It meant, I found, that this was the cork forest, and that the bark of the cork trees had lately been cut. Those rainbow colors soon fade, however, like the pink and white complexion of youth.

At the next station stood many cars laden with rough cork.

“The coarse, outer layers are used for fishing nets and life preservers. To even things up,” Patsy explained, “they keep the fine, inner pinkish layers to bottle up those two great life destroyers, the drugs and liquors of the world.”

The way now led over the Sierra Rondena, through the wildest, most beautiful part of Andalusia; past thickets of gum cistus, covered with glorious, golden-hearted, white blossoms; across green _vegas_ enamelled with clumps of amber gorse; through waves of daisies, white and yellow, regiments of scarlet poppies marching through the pale green wheat, multitudes of cornflowers, morning glories, and ruby-headed alfalfa, king of all the handsome clover tribe. In this company of old friends a stranger flower stooped through the fields, half drooping, half mourning, a purple hood pulled over its head almost hiding the small blue bells hanging from the bending stalk. In that holiday crowd it looked like a hooded monk, a purple _penitente_ at a carnival. I could never learn its true name, so we called it the Spanish Friar....

“Lift thine eyes, oh, lift thine eyes to the mountains, whence cometh help!” sang Patsy.

Intoxicated with the flower feast, the way had brought us within sight of the distant Sierras without our being aware. The mountains came to meet us, nearer, nearer; then, all at once, we were in their midst; the tall blue peaks came crowding all about us. As the engine panted “up, up” the mountain pass, the way crossed a flashing mountain torrent leaping down, down to the _vega_ and the sea beyond; it looked more like a river of emeralds and snow than mere green water and white foam.

“Andalusia, once Vandalusia, named for the Vandals, who tarried here before their wild dash across the Alps down into Italy. Andalusia, ‘ultima terræ’ of the ancients, the uttermost parts of the earth, where good old Jonah longed to flee, small blame to him,” Patsy maundered on, sleepily giving us bits of guidebook information.

“Andalusia, Vandalusia, Vandalusia, Andalusia.” The wheels sang it like a lullaby. “Anda----”

“Ronda, Ronda!” cried the guard. We rubbed our eyes, snatched our belongings, tumbled out of the compartment to the platform, and almost into the arms of the Sibyl of Ronda, patiently waiting for us there, like Fate. She was a tiny old woman, draped like a Tanagra statuette, in veils of soft, rusty black: her face was like a damask rose that has withered on its stalk; the eyes alone, diamond bright, were young, full of fire. With a tremulous hand she offered J. a box of matches. An officious young man, with oiled hair and a green cravat, pushed her rudely aside. She was not to trouble the gentlefolk, responsibility for whose welfare in Ronda he assumed. Was he not the “offeecial” guide? Did he not speak English?

“We can speak English ourselves, and we don’t want a guide,” J. interposed. “We want a philosopher and friend. If we must have somebody to toot us about, I vote we take the Sibyl.”

“What? Prefer an old thing like that to an active young man like me?” The official guide was incredulous!

“Isn’t she a little old?” I ventured.

“Did you ever see handsomer wrinkles? They are perfectly classic,” said J.

“And the twinkle in her eye!” Patsy supported him. “Wrinkles and twinkles against stall-fed guidebookery? The old girl for me. She’s over eighty, she says; she was born in Ronda; has lived here all her life. She must know more about it than that Algerine pirate with the emerald tie. Past eighty, you said, didn’t you?”

“_Ochanta dos; perro en Ronda los ombres a ochanta son pollones_,” the Sibyl answered. I am eighty-two, but in Ronda men of eighty are only chickens.

“I understand her Spanish!” cried Patsy. “That settles it; sealed to the Sibyl! I’ll go bond she will let us in for something worth seeing.” As usual, Patsy and J. had their way, and the active young man, angry and chapfallen, watched us with a sinister look, as we pottered slowly along beside the Sibyl. Our guides were mostly chosen for beauty, or charm. On the whole the plan worked well enough.

The Romans showed their usual colossal common sense in choosing the site of Arunda. Rome always was the model city they kept in mind. Three things, they rightly held, were necessary to a city; a not too distant view of mountains, to uplift the soul of the citizen; a fine climate to stimulate his body; a river for boys to swim and fish in, and for men to traffic by. When they found this high, fertile plain shut in by an amphitheatre of mountains, with one lone hill in the midst, surrounded and cut in halves by a rushing river, they built their city of Arunda on the cleft, river-girt rock we call Ronda. The Moors, who cleverly dovetailed their towns and their civilization into what Rome left, built their town of Ronda with the ruins of Arunda. We found remains of both Roman and Moorish walls. The modern town, built by the “Catholic Kings,” Ferdinand and Isabel, is remarkable chiefly for the wonderful view from the _alameda_. You look down a sheer six hundred feet to the green _vega_, and the turbulent river Guadelevin fretting and fuming below. After roaring and raging through the Tajo, the deep chasm that divides Ronda, the river tumbles with a series of mad leaps and bounds to the plain beyond. Cutting a few antics with eddies and whirlpools, Guadelevin finally gets himself in hand, and goes soberly to work; turns the wheels of the old Moorish mills, makes flour for Ronda, as the Moors taught him to do; lends his strength to a new labor, for, marvel of marvels, old Moorish Ronda is lighted by electricity. In summer, when the river shrinks to a mere thread, its waning power is carefully husbanded and the water is led by pipes to do its work. Water, always water, alpha and omega of civilization! No town that could not be well supplied with water from the snowy Sierras or from some mountain lake was ever founded by Roman or Moor. Their wisdom is clearer now than ever before. What city prospers, lacking the Siamese twins of successful manufacture, water power, and electricity?

A flock of evil-looking birds hovered over a lonely thicket of tamarisks, close by the foot of the wall.

“From there,” said the Sibyl, pointing to the tamarisks, “they throw the dead horses over the walls, after the bull-fights. The vultures soon pick their bones!” Grrrr! The ugly word spoiled the lovely view.

The Sibyl lived in the old, Moorish part of the city, that is called the Ciudad. She led us through the steep, narrow streets, pointing out the show houses. Here lived the grim Moorish king, Almoneted. He drank his wine from the skulls of enemies whose heads he had cut off, made into goblets, and inlaid with splendid jewels. Patsy, in his rococo Spanish, wondered if Almoneted had hoped to inherit the courage that once flashed from the sockets he stopped with emerald and ruby. The Sibyl twinkled all over at his suggestion.

“_Claro_,” she said, “it was doubtless his idea.”

She showed us the Mina, an underground staircase of three hundred and sixty-five steps, one for every day in the year, like the churches in old Rome, leading down to the river. It was built so that, in case of siege, Ronda should not be cut off from water. Moorish caution! The Romans of Arunda apparently never contemplated such a possibility. The houses of the Ciudad are oriental in character, with blank, whitewashed walls, and rare, grated windows; they are all built to look as much alike as possible, in order to avoid attracting attention. The doors are the only distinguishing feature; all of them are massive, and built for defence; some are of walnut, some of oak, iron barred, iron bound, studded with bronze bosses or brass ornaments. Oh, redoubtable doors of old Ronda! What stores of wealth, what moons of beauty did you guard for the jealous Moors that made you?

The Sibyl understood all Patsy meant but could not say. The moment their eyes met, flash, flash, a secret code was established between them. Thanks to her, one of those mysterious doors was opened to us, and we saw the interior of one of those old Moorish houses, whose key, perhaps, is treasured by some Moor of Morocco to-day, for when they were driven back to Africa, the Moors took the keys of their houses in Andalusia and Granada with them, against the day they should return and reclaim their lost paradise. These keys have been handed down from generation to generation; some of them hang to-day in the Moorish houses of Tangiers and Tetuan.

When we were tired with much sightseeing, the Sibyl hospitably took us home to rest. In the patio of her house we found enchanting Moorish columns with slender shafts, and capitals that must have been copied from the Corinthian capitals the Romans used so much in Spain, only these are lighter and less formal, and have more feeling of the lovely form of the curling acanthus leaf. The patio, a survival of the Roman atrium, is an open court in the middle of the house, surrounded by a roofed corridor, where, during the warm weather, the life of an Andalusian family centres. In the Sibyl’s patio stood an old Moorish well with an Arabic inscription. I cast longing eyes at it.

“Whatever you see,” said J., “admire nothing that can be carried off by the modern Vandals, who have looted Italy and are looting Spain. If you do, she’ll sell it.”

“The old Vandals were a decent lot in comparison,” Patsy agreed. “History has maligned them. If they did ‘lift’ a little property now and again, they, at least, left the owners the privilege of enjoying a virtuous indignation! These modern buyers, spoilers, barbarians, buy the victim’s consent, add ignominy to spoiliation!”

A pair of goldfinches gossipped about their housekeeping in a wattle cage hung near the old Moorish well. A lemon tree in a glazed earthenware pot (it had one green lemon) and some gorgeous double carnations, variegated dark red and yellow, planted in a petroleum can, stood close to the well where they could be easily watered. As she passed, the Sibyl pinched off a dead leaf with a touch that was a caress,--these were her growing things, this was her pleasaunce.

In the living-room, which was the kitchen, too, was a quaint, carved stone fireplace. On the balcony outside was a gilt iron grill, surmounted by a battered pomegranate “final,” sure some day to find its way into a “collection.” The house was clean, in spite of the horde of children it sheltered, the Sibyl’s great-grandchildren, for whose sake she sells matches at Ronda station.

The mother sat on a low stool rocking a wooden cradle with her foot; her hands were busy shelling _garbanzoz_, chickpeas, for the _olla_. Twin infants, lusty as Romulus and Remus, slept in the cradle; a pair of babes a size larger played with each other’s toes in a long, bath-shaped, wicker basket; a girl of five pretended to help her mother with the _garbanzoz_. As we entered, the mother rose, welcomed us with grave ceremony, offered us food and drink and assured us that this house and everything it contained was ours: “_Esta muy a la disposicion de Vmd._” It is very much at your disposal, the pretty old phrase goes.

Her face was plain beside the Sibyl’s, time had etched every line _there_ with an artist’s fine care, but she had the grace, the reserve, the proud bearing of the Andaluz that poets have praised before, and since, De Musset, whose Andaluz lived in Barcelona, and was a Catalan, after all. As the youngsters were very near of an age, when the mother offered to give us everything in sight I asked if she could spare a baby? She looked almost pretty as she unbent, smiled, patted the biggest, and answered, with a twinkle like the old woman’s, that there were none too many--indeed, that there were four more at school.

“Nine children, what a fine large family!” The Sibyl shrugged her shoulders, rolled up her eyes, and lifted a withered hand to heaven in protest.

“Granny doesn’t think it much of a family; she had seven boys and seven girls.”

“It is true,” the Sibyl nodded, and stroked her lean flanks with tremulous hands; “this,” she looked at her grandchild as if she expected great things of her, “is the seventh daughter of my seventh daughter.”

When, our visit over, we rose to take leave, spokesman Patsy produced the phrase from his vocabulary that he had been conning:

“_Muchas memorias. Adios._”

The Andaluz put this aside as too final. “_Hasta luego_,” she said, with her slow, sweet smile,--“Till we meet again.”

“_Vamos!_” said the Sibyl, and showed the way to the door.

As we left the house of many children, we met a cavalcade of gay young people riding out of town. The men rode horses, the girls mules or donkeys. The woman’s saddle was curiously made with crisscross arms and a back like an armchair. They were evidently well to do farmer folk; all wore good clothes and were well mounted. Several of them had ruddy, northern complexions. The Sibyl laid this to the excellent climate,--“In Ronda, we do not know when it is summer,” she said. The last of the cavalcade to pass was a large, gray mule with as pretty a couple as you might see, seated on his broad back. We felt sure they were bride and groom. The man, a handsome fellow, full of the lust of life, sat very straight in saddle; the slim girl on the pillion behind, her arm about his waist, was full of bridal coquetries. She wore red stockings, a rose behind her ear, a lace-trimmed petticoat. An old, yellowish, time-worn guitar was slung over her shoulders by a cherry ribbon. As they rode past us, both young people smiled and nodded to the Sibyl.

“Your friends?” Patsy asked.

“My relatives.” Proud that we should see them, and that they should see us, her face kindled; so did Patsy’s. We all walked on through the tortuous Moorish _calle_ with a lighter step, a braver heart for that chance meeting. It seemed as if we had caught some reflection of the hope, health, and love shining in their young faces.

“I play the guitar myself, after a fashion, not Spanish fashion, alack!” said Patsy. “Shade of Espinal! I won’t leave Ronda till I have had a lesson. He lived here, Espinal, who gave the fifth string, perfected the guitar, made it what it is--what it can be in a Spaniard’s hands.”

A tall, arrogant-looking priest, with head held high, passed at this moment and challenged us with the eye, as the British officer had challenged us at Gibraltar. It seemed that he was master here, as that other had been master on the Rock.

“If I were a priest of Ronda I should hold up my head,” said Patsy, “just because Espinal was a priest. He did other things worth doing beside giving us the fifth string: invented the decima, wrote a book, Marcus de Obregan, that’s read to-day, three hundred years after; translated Horace--a pleasant task--lived to be eight years older than the Sibyl, died at ninety, still in the ring, still fighting. I like Ronda; let’s buy a house and settle here!”

“Almoneted’s house for choice,” said J., and they began alloting quarters forthwith. The window with the north light should be the studio, the room on the courtyard far from noise, the library. In every town we visited, and they approved of, they made plans for passing the rest of our lives there.

* * * * *

The convent chapel smelt of lavender. The sunlight pouring through the rose window over the high altar was so strong that you saw tiny motes floating in the sunbeams. They could not have been dust, for the chapel was immaculate, a temple of purity from the worn marble flags under foot to the swinging silver lamps overhead, all freshly trimmed like the lamps of the wise virgins. The Virgin’s lace handkerchief was a triumph of clear starching. She was dressed in black and wore only a few of her jewels--the Sibyl said--because it was Lent; we should see her at Easter! The Virgin’s velvet dress was in the style of the sixteenth century; she wore a hoop, a ruff, and a long pointed bodice.

The Sibyl was not devout. She took the holy water to cross herself, mechanically, and made the most indifferent little duck for a courtesy as she passed before the altar. She looked with a cold eye on dear San Antonio di Padua, though he must be popular in Ronda, from the number of candles burning before him. Her indifference was in marked contrast to the piety of two freshly powdered young ladies, who were coming out of the chapel as we entered. They were of the great world; their combs and shoes were unquestionably from Paris.

“But the eyes, the eyes are Andalusian, and the torrents of black hair piled and puffed under those blessed black mantillas!” murmured Patsy, as they passed, smelling sweet of heliotrope and rice powder. The taller had a rosary of gold and pearls in her left hand, a fan in the right; the pearls slipped through her fingers, her lips moved; she was evidently “telling her beads.” As they passed the statue of Santa Teresa, both knelt and crossed themselves with extraordinary reverence.

“Remember what Don Jaime said,” Patsy reminded us; “that the common people of Spain take their religion very easily; everybody did when he was young, till the Queen Mother made it fashionable to be _devote_, when she came to Spain, bringing back the Jesuits and all the rest of them in her train. As a boy, the Don never remembers having seen a monk or a nun.”

In spite of her “indifference,” the Sibyl had held stanchly to her proposal that we should visit the convent where she had learned to sew and to embroider. Mass was just over, the priest had left the altar, the sacristan was snuffing out the candles. We had a glimpse of black veiled figures passing slowly behind the altar from one unseen chamber to another; they were followed by slighter, more lightly moving figures in white that flitted ethereally where the others walked solidly. Two by two they passed behind the altar with a noiseless step. When the last one had vanished, the priest and the sacristan disappeared into the sacristy, and we were left alone, with San Antonio and the other saints.

One end of the chapel was shut off by two heavy iron gratings, one behind the other. On the other side of the grill was a close-latticed screen, through which we could see a heavy, black curtain; the movement of the folds showed that we were being watched by some one on the other side of the triple barrier. After a short delay a novice slipped quietly into the chapel, a sprite of a girl with bright eyes and rosy cheeks, dressed in white serge and crisp linen. She asked us for “alms for the Holy Sacrament.” Patsy produced our offering. The little novice’s eyes opened roundly as her small red hand closed on the coin; she courtesied, so prettily, and flitted away as lightly as she came. As she passed the grill, she breathed some word of necromancy--it sounded like “blankichisserando.” Then, silently, the black curtain was withdrawn; we saw a stout red porteress with a bunch of huge keys in her hand, a key turned grudgingly in a rusty lock, a hinge squeaked, the lattice parted, the convent walls flew back! We had a glimpse of veiled figures flying helter skelter; then through the grim, double iron grating we looked into the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the nuns. A long, lonely room with rows of uncomfortably narrow, high-backed benches and narrow tables, over which hung some good crystal chandeliers filled with wax candles. Though it shone with neatness, it was the most cheerless living-room imaginable. In the middle, close to the grating, stood a tall, graceful woman, who looked like a Vestal of ancient Rome. Her taper, aristocratic hands were folded in a clasp that suggested strength rather than meekness; her small head, finely set upon the shoulders, was held high and proudly.

“The Abbess wishes to speak with you,” whispered the Sibyl.

“How long,” asked the Abbess--her voice like a far away chime of silver bells,--“how long do you remain in Ronda?”

I said our stay was short, no one had told us how much there was to see in Ronda.

“There is but one Ronda in the world,” she said. The bells sounded nearer. The Sibyl nodded agreement. “It is the truth,” she murmured.

“You are of Ronda?” I made out to ask.

The Abbess shook her head, and answered with a splendid pride, “_Soy hija di Granada_” (I am a daughter of Granada), as if that were the proudest title in the world. There was more bronze than silver in the bells now.

“What is the work you do in the convent?”

“We pray for the entire world.” Her voice all silver again. Then, as an after-thought and of far less consequence:

“We have a school of needlework. Our embroidery is not unknown outside of Ronda; it has been heard of even outside of Spain.” I felt abashed that I had not heard of it.

“You will, perhaps, return to Ronda for the fair in May? Many strangers are here then. Should you come back we shall always be glad to see you at the convent.”

We felt that we were dismissed. I thanked the Abbess as best I could, in my halting Spanish, for her courtesy. She smiled a cold, holy smile; her last words were a benediction:

“_Vayan Vds. con Dios!_”

I had a glimpse of the little novice standing on tiptoe looking at Patsy over the Abbess’s shoulder, with round, bright eyes, then the black curtains drew noiselessly together, the stout red porteress shut the wooden lattice with a loud clang, and turned the protesting key in the lock. The cold beauty of the Abbess, the fresh comeliness of the novice, were hidden behind the triple barrier: curtain, lattice, and cruel iron bars in double rank. No outstretched hand from within that grating could ever touch another hand reaching to meet it from the other side.

“We shall come back to Ronda for the fair,” said Patsy, cheerfully, as he took leave of the Sibyl at the station. “If not this year, another year. The Abbess has invited us: mind that you are here to meet us at the train!”

The Sibyl smiled, a brave, old, withered smile, and waved her tiny, wrinkled hand:

“_Hasta otra vista!_”

She would do her best to keep the tryst!

III

THE WHITE VEIL

Concepcion sitting in the patio under a golden shower of yellow Bankshire roses! That was our first impression of Seville. Pemberton, tall and lean, stood beside her, nervously twirling his stick. We hurried down to the courtyard; introductions followed.

“_Mes amigos_, Concepcion. She doesn’t speak a word of English--all the better for your Spanish. She is Sevilliana born. We will do our best between us to show you the town in--how many days or hours do you mean to stay?”

“Weeks or months, rather; you don’t know what you are letting yourself in for,” warned J.

“The longer the better. Concepcion is sometimes busy with the children, housekeeping, or millinery. I never have anything to do.”

Concepcion welcomed us with soft eyes, a gracious flurry of civilities, glanced at her watch, and looked meaningly at Pemberton.

“Yes,” he said, “it’s time to start. The

ceremony of Rending the White Veil, the first act of the drama, begins at ten o’clock.”

It was the Wednesday of Holy Week. We had timed our arrival in Seville with an eye to that service. Had it not been for Concepcion, we might have missed it, after all. It was wonderful enough to sit in the patio with the paired Moorish columns, the green and blue _azulejos_, listening to the fountain, and the green love-birds in their gilded cage, looking at Concepcion, her little feet tucked under her chair, her fan gently agitated, her mantilla almost as black as her curls.

Outside, in the Plaza del Pacifico, the sun lay hot on the tawny earth; among the glossy green leaves of the orange trees, golden fruit and waxen blossom hung side by side. The air was sweet with the smell of them. A little boy took off his jacket and fluttered it like a _muleta_ (the matador’s red cloak) in his companion’s face. In a moment the two boys were hard at it--playing at bull-fighting. We lingered to watch them.

“Seville is even better than I remembered,” said Patsy. “I must have been here before (I knew that he had not); I seem to have known it all my life. What a lot of our friends, dead and alive, came from here! The Emperor Trajan was a Sevilliano, so were Don Juan and Velasquez, so is Villegas. Figaro, brass basin, white apron, and all, met us at the gate last night when we arrived, and ran beside the carriage, pointing out the black arrows at the corners showing the way.”

Was Rossini ever in Seville? Not that it signifies; he devined it all, if he did not see it. His creatures, Figaro, Rosina, Don Bartolo, are of the glorious company of its ghosts.

Seville is a siren city. The river Guadalquiver throws an arm about her; genius, when it may, follows suit and embraces the darling of Andalusia.

“I’ll show you Figaro’s barber shop some day,” said Pemberton over his shoulder. “It’s near my place. Yes, I’m a householder. You know the proverb? ‘Whom God loves, he gives a house in Seville.’”

“Find us one, and we’ll settle here, too!” Patsy exclaimed.

“We will talk about that later,” said Pemberton. “Now, I am taking you to the cathedral. Before you see it, I ask you to consider the immortal resolution passed by its founders before the first stone was laid. ‘Let us build,’ they resolved, ‘a monument that shall make posterity declare that we were mad.’ That was a good bluff, wasn’t it?”

“The only thing about posterity that you can bank on,” Patsy sagely put in, “is that it won’t say what is expected of it!”

“_Claro!_ Posterity, you and I and Concepcion here, say those men were the sanest of their time. They, their architects, and their artists support this city to-day. I don’t know how the taxes could get paid without the money you travelers bring. The cathedral is the thing that draws you, and the pageants and _fiestas_--they have all grown up out of it, are part and parcel of it. The ‘monument’ of those ‘madmen’ is the Heart of Seville. I wish we had a few such lunatics at home. _They_ only thought about building the house of God. We waste ourselves in inventing ingenious devices for heating and lighting the churches of men, and let slip the great opportunity!”

We were walking, while Pemberton poured out his vehement torrent of talk, through a narrow, twisting _calle_, innocent of sidewalks, between tall Morisco houses with openwork gates, catching tantalizing glimpses of patios where roses riot, fountains sing, cedars whisper. If there be jealous iron-bound doors in gracious Seville, like those of grim, old Moorish Ronda, they stand hospitably ajar. As we turned a corner, Pemberton stopped us with a gesture:

“Look,” he said, “the Giralda!”

Across a plaza where fringed palms rustle, at the end of a _calle_ still in faint lilac shadow, stood a tall square tower of tenderest rose color. The Giralda, once the minaret of old Abu Yacob’s mosque, dominates Seville as the Giglio of Giotto dominates Florence, by its imperial right of beauty. The bronze Victory on the summit turned lightly with the breeze; her Roman helmet, her standard, and the olive branch in her hand sharply etched against the fiery blue sky. In the belfry the old green bells--all Christians baptized--San Miquel, el Cantor, Santa Maria, la Gorda, swung to and fro, calling the people to prayer as their predecessor, the muezzin, once called them.

“It is very late,” murmured Concepcion. She spoke slowly, distinctly; I understood her then and after. My Spanish was “coming back to me:” at sixteen I could chatter like a magpie in West Indian Castilian. We hurried on, losing the Giralda to find it again standing like a tall sentinel beside the cathedral. This was our first meeting with Gothic architecture in Spain. The pure lines of pointed window and door, the airy, flying buttresses, the graceful parapet crowning the roof rose stately above us, solemn and inspiring, a very gospel carven in warm gray stone.

“The cathedral is the Heart of Seville,” said Pemberton, “it is a unique thing. No church in Christendom, no Greek temple or Buddhist shrine can compare with it. Not because it is the largest Gothic cathedral and the third largest church in the world, but because it has breath, because it is alive.”

An aged beggar, clean and respectable, lifted the heavy leathern curtain that hung over the door. “_Una limosna por el amor de Dios_,” he whispered. Concepcion dropped a _perro chico_ (literally a small dog, a copper coin worth one cent) into his trembling old hand.

“_Dios se lo paga a V._,” said the beggar, a neat, self-respecting mendicant whose voice lacked the whine of Italy. God himself will pay it to you!

In the rich, dusky spaces of the nave, near the _puerta mayor_, a marble slab is let into the pavement. Carved upon the slab are the familiar device of the three brave caravels and the proud motto, “_á Castilla y á Leon, mundo nuebo dié Colon_.”

“This is the tomb of that good son, Ferdinand Columbus,” said Pemberton. A cord tightened round my heart. “That’s a link with the past that holds, isn’t it?”

From that moment it seemed as if we all caught fire from Pemberton, saw through his eyes, felt with his intensity of feeling. The sweeping aisles, the steadfast columns, the soaring arches of that cathedral seemed elemental things, like their prototypes, the forest lanes, the giants of the primeval wood. We could almost feel the spring of pine needles underfoot, smell the resin, see the sunlight striking through the tops of tall pines swaying together, arching the forest path.

The _coro_ the distinguishing feature of Spanish cathedrals--it is like a chapel set down in the middle of a church--interferes less with the impression of the whole building at Seville than in any other cathedral we saw. In the outer aisles, which are free of the _coro_, you have an uninterrupted view of the entire length of the building, and can realize its sublime proportions, get a sense of the harmony of the whole; the ease with which the vast columns uphold the roof, and divide the whole space into its proper parts. In itself, the _coro_ is like an exquisitely wrought gem in a chaste and simple setting. It is shut off from the nave on the side of the _puerta mayor_, by a marble façade containing fine bas-reliefs, and a painting of the Virgin by Francesco Pacheco, father-in-law and teacher of Velasquez. On the side towards the _capilla mayor_ and the high altar, the _coro_ is isolated by a magnificent wrought-iron screen where, high up in groups of threes, hang the golden mass bells. Around the interior of the _coro_ runs a double row of choir stalls, marvels of wood carving, in part grotesque, where the carver’s fancy ran riot and reproduced the faces of the men, beasts, and devils that had haunted his childish dreams.

Those goblin, demon heads are carved low down, where the hand rests, the knees push. They are worn away, polished smooth by the rubbing of the palms and the calves of generations of monks. Safe above, where the uplifted eye strikes, are the heavenly visions,--angels, saints, prophets, the Virgin in glory, fresh as the day old Nufro Sanchez carved them. In the middle of the _coro_ stands the tall _facistol_ holding the yellow vellum music books open at the page where the monkish illuminators painted their most beautiful miniatures.

“There’s Villegas’s picture,” J. whispered, as we passed the _coro_, “the old choirmaster holding up his baton, scolding the choristers. I know every inch of this church; there’s not a corner he has not painted.”

“And how he has painted it!” sighed Pemberton; “as a man paints the portrait of his mother. How you feel the artists, dead and alive, who have worked here; that’s part of the fascination of the place.”

“Put the camp chairs there,” said Concepcion. She had found us the perfect position, between the _coro_ and the _capilla mayor_. “Did he tell you that screen is gilded with the first gold that came from the Americas?”

The ship that brought that first gold must have been the size of the Mayflower, from the amount of “first gold” it is supposed to have brought to Spain.

There was no crowd, only a few women dressed like Concepcion, all in black; some poor bodies, a sprinkling of tourists, and one brown Franciscan. The sunlight pouring through the painted window of the Assumption stained the nearest columns blood-red, sapphire, emerald. In the _coro_, sombre and rich, the crimson and scarlet cloaks of the old canons, sitting slumbrous in the stalls, glowed like jewels in the dusk. Grouped in couples about the _facistol_ were the choir boys, their black-letter scores held between them. The high altar of the _capilla mayor_ was covered by a thick, White Veil, that hung from the groined roof to the floor. Two by two the tonsured acolytes in long purple gowns, with tassels of gold and violet, prepared for the service, dressed the pulpits, laid ready the missals. The three officiating priests appeared, each preceded by a pair of altar boys in scarlet and ivory, carrying silver candlesticks twice as tall as they. The priest at the middle pulpit was a big, powerful man, with a fine resonant voice. His intoning of the gospel was masterly; Concepcion said the finest in Seville, if not in Spain. The old priest with the delicate, spiritual face, like a wax mask with jewel eyes, and the high treble voice, must have been as good at intoning in his day. The little boys who held the candles close for his old eyes to see, leaned towards him with a pleasant, human tenderness. It was easy to see there was love in their service.

“_Et posuit eum in monumento_,” the old priest quavered out the last words of the story, as it is told by Luke; the three celebrants left the altar with much ceremony of book and bell and kiss ecclesiastical, and took their stand before the white veiled altar; the purple acolytes swung their gold censers till we saw the glowing coals; the smoke of frankincense and spice rose up in clouds. There came a moment of strained silence. The only sound was the clinking of the censer chains. The air between priests and people was thick and blue with incense.

Brrrrrrrrrrm, brrrrrrrrrrrm! The silence was shattered by a loud clap of thunder, another and another, as if a fierce tempest had sprung up outside. While the thunder rolled and echoed through the aisles, the White Veil was rent from top to bottom, fell to the ground, and disappeared as if by magic. In its place hung the Black Veil. Before this stood in studied attitudes the big priest, the old priest, and a little priest. The brown Franciscan kneeling by the great tenabrium had thrown back his head in ecstasy.

“Look,” whispered Pemberton, “the Saint Anthony of Murillo; I will show you the picture in the baptistry; it’s the one the figure of Anthony was cut out from and sent to New York. They have put the piece back, but the ‘joining’ shows.”

We came out of the cathedral into the light and perfume of the Court of Oranges, sat down upon a sun-warmed marble bench, and looked up at the pigeons flitting about the Giralda. A little cloud floated before the face of the sun, a shadow fell upon the fountain.

“That fountain where the women are gossiping is the old Moorish _midhâ_, where the musselmen washed before prayer, as I have seen them do in Turkey. Women weren’t allowed in the Court of Oranges then,” mused Pemberton. “Where we sit, the temples of Astarte and of Salambo once stood. It’s curious how you catch the echoes of the older religions in these ceremonies of Holy Week. Some of the rites were practiced before Rome was. The mosque, the Moors who worshipped there, seem things of yesterday, in comparison.”

“Almost of to-day, that cry, that man are more than half Arab.”

“_Agua, agua fresca!_” The cry twanged of the Orient. The water seller, lean and brown, with impenetrable black velvet eyes, turned into the courtyard. He was dressed all in white, with

odd, hemp-soled shoes,--a grave man who offered water from his clean cup, then passed on his way, his cry growing faint, fainter, till it was drowned in the clangor of _el Cantor_, the great, green, bronze bell of the Giralda.

The afternoon of Holy Wednesday found us in the Plaza de la Constitucion. Before the florid façade of the Casa de Ayutamiento a grand stand had been built. In the center was a dais hung with crimson velvet, garlanded with flowers. Under a gold embroidered canopy stood three gilded thrones.

“For the King, the Queen Mother, and the Infanta Maria Teresa,” Concepcion explained. Opposite, across the plaza, Pemberton pointed out the Audienza, a handsome Renaissance building, over whose door were the arms of Charles V, the Pillars of Hercules with the old motto borrowed from the old hero, _ne plus ultra_. A marble column shows where the public executions once took place. The plaza, scene of tournaments, bull-fights, and carnival fêtes, was crowded by those who could afford the best seats for the processions of penitence, the famous pageants of Holy Week. The audience assembled in twos and threes, the dark, full-bosomed Andalusian women, with fan and mantilla, the men in uniform or afternoon dress. In a neighboring box sat a young girl with a lovely oval face, masses of wavy black hair, and eyes like cool, brown agates.

“That is Luz,” said Pemberton, “called the prettiest girl in Seville.” He looked at Concepcion as he said it.

“There is a woman who is as beautiful,” I said, truthfully, and knew that Pemberton was my friend for life.

Luz had many visitors (the seats in her box were never empty), they came and went like moths about a candle. One remained, a monk in a brown habit, the Franciscan of the cathedral. In spite of his rope girdle, his bare sandaled feet, he had once belonged to that world of fashion where Luz rules, and where he was still at home.

A fanfare of trumpets rang out above the babble and the laughter. Fans were closed, flirtations broken off. Luz turned in her seat; all eyes were fixed on the corner where the Calle de Serpientes turns into the plaza. Down the narrow street, out into the full light of the square, rode a troop of resplendent cavalry,--white Andalusian horses with delicate, high-stepping feet, men who sat straight in the saddle, in spite of rich trappings and gorgeous uniforms. The _penitentes_ followed, sombre, masked men in long, purple velvet gowns, the train folded over the arm, showing violet silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes. From their tall, pointed caps hung down the antefaces covering the entire head, falling low upon the breast: through the eyeholes one caught the flash of dark eyes. In their gloved hands they carried silver staffs of office ten feet high. Behind walked the _Nazerenos_. The foremost carried a large cross; the others, standards of the order, or flaming torches that smoked and flickered as they walked. Before the _penitentes_ passed in front of the grand stand, they spread out their trains that trailed behind them on the ground. In the midst of these maskers strode a band of Roman centurions,--helmets, cuirasses, spears, and standards with the familiar S P Q R glancing in the sun. The music to which they marched had a melancholy refrain, a sort of insistant grieving that knocked at the heart.

“The funeral march of Eslava; you will know it well before Easter,” said Pemberton.

“_Ai, ai!_” A great sigh breathed by a thousand people as the first _paso_ came in sight,--a huge float moving, as if miraculously, down the Street of Serpents out into the plaza. On a base of wrought silver, at the height of a man’s shoulder, stood a life-sized statue of the Virgin.

“_Nuestra Señora de la Vittoria_,” murmured Concepcion.

The statue, of painted wood, was sumptuously dressed. The front of her robe was of costly lace; over this fell from the shoulders a train of black velvet, two yards long, heavily embroidered in gold arabesques. The hair was real. On the head sparkled a stupendous diamond crown. Slowly, slowly the float drew near, wrapped in a cloud of incense from the censers of the _penitentes_. A rain of flowers fell from window and balcony; the velvet and gold baldequin over the Virgin’s head was almost hidden by lilies and roses. At her feet were flaunting daffodils in silver vases, and row on row of blazing candles at various heights. She was covered from throat to waist with superb jewels, strings of pearls, diamonds, and sapphires. Her wrists were laden with bracelets, in her hand she carried a lace pocket handkerchief. As she entered the plaza a tremendous peal shook the soft air; the vast green bells of the Giralda seemed to fling themselves like live creatures towards Mary. The glitter of the gewgaws, the glow of the candles lighted up the face, showed the tears (pearls of great price) on the cheeks, the beauty and tenderness of the expression.

“A masterpiece by the sculptor, Montañes, the friend of Velasquez,” said Pemberton. In spite of all the frippery of the dress you feel the hand of the master sculptor in the painted statue. The

_Velasquez_]

_Greco_]

loving, tender face, the feminine outstretched arms divinely express the eternal womanly.

“_Miré, Miré, Vd! el Rey y la Reina!_” whispered Concepcion. She had not been too much engrossed to see the young King and his mother take their places. The _paso_ turned slowly as if on a pivot till the queen celestial faced the queen terrestrial. The King uncovered and saluted, the Queen Mother, Cristina Maria, courtesied,--so they stood facing each other for a single heart-beat, then the King left the dais, walked down into the plaza, and took his place at the head of those masked men.

“Don Alfonzo is the Elder Brother of the Confraternity of the Cigar Makers,” whispered Concepcion. “See, he escorts their patron, our Lady of Victory, through the plaza.”

To the mournful grieving of Eslava’s dirge, the Virgin of the cigar makers, escorted by the King, disappeared on the way to her station in the cathedral.

“_Te dea major eris!_” murmured Pemberton, “so they carried Salambo through Seville. I hope you admired the dress; it was new this year, a present from the ladies of Seville. It cost one hundred and fifty thousand _pesetas_; I know because I helped pay for it. You saw there were bread riots last week, not fifty miles from here? It’s the old spirit of Seville, the spirit that built the cathedral during the hundred years when Spain was pouring out blood and money like water in defence of the faith. We can always get what we really want in Seville, and most other places!”

During the long waits between the acts of the drama of the Passion, the little dramas of every-day life went on all around us. In the boxes the young people looked into each other’s eyes, the _duennas_ manœuvred, encouraged the eligible, frowned on the ineligible. A slim young officer in a cloak slipped a note into Luz’s hand as he passed her box, and only the Franciscan saw it. In the crowd below, the flirt of an orange skirt challenged beauty in the grand stand.

“Imperio, the dancing girl,” said Pemberton. “She’s come home for the fêtes. That old fellow, her father, is the crack matador tailor; he makes all Bombito’s toggery.”

“_Miré_,” whispered Concepcion, “The Lord dressed in a handsome tunic of cloth of silver, embroidered in gold.”

The entry into Jerusalem, a realistic float, was passing. It represented the Master mounted on an ass, Peter, John, and Sant Iago kneeling before him. This was followed by a large _paso_, illustrating the Betrayal in the Garden. Peter, sword in hand, Judas--he was always dressed in yellow, the color of treachery--the Roman soldiers as well as the Christ, are all the work of Montañes. It is said that Montañes while he was at work on this, often got up at night to look at it, and was once overheard to say, “How could I have done anything so beautiful?” In spite of the Master’s ruby velvet robe and the tawdry gilt rays behind his head, the thing took hold of one, the picture “bit” into the memory plate and will not easily be erased. There was a moment of silence as the scenes of the Passion were presented in these wonderful vivid pictures, but as soon as each paso swung by the grand stand, the laughter and flirtation began again. The tragic _paso_ of the Crucifixion was escorted by a brotherhood of boy _penitentes_ followed by a band of child musicians. Directly behind the cross marched a tiny drummer in uniform, beating a big drum. If he was not a dwarf, he could not have been more than four years old.

“What a funny little boy!” murmured Concepcion, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. The supreme scene of the Crucifixion, the figures all by Roldan, the sculptor who spares no grim detail of pain, was followed by stifled laughter. The merriment struck an awful anti-climax.

“Remember,” Pemberton explained, “you are seeing this thing for the first time; these people have seen it all their lives; familiarity breeds, not contempt, but a certain callousness. The young women are so strictly guarded, you must not blame them if they ‘make eyes’ a little. This is one of their few chances to see and be seen.”

“Do you make as much of Christmas as of Holy Week?” I asked Concepcion, to turn the conversation. “Which is the greater _fiesta_?”

“There are three great _fiestas_ of the Church,” she answered, “but Christmas is, undoubtedly, the greatest. There is a saying, ‘Who does not fast on the vigil of Christmas is either a Turk or a dog.’ This is true for people of our religion, for at midnight the Niño Jesus was born. I do not know how it is with you, for we are Catholics and you are Christians.”

“In what does the difference lie?”

“In the manner of baptism. You are baptized all over in a great vat with water only; we, with water, oil, and salt that is put in the mouth. There are also other ceremonies,--there is the godmother who holds the candle.”

“What are the Christmas services like?”

“Ah, you must return, if only to see the dancing of the _seises_ in the cathedral. I am told this can be seen only at Seville. The _seises_ are boys, who wear curious dresses and long blond curls. It is an ancient custom,--my husband says, in memory of the Israelites dancing before the ark, but I think differently.”

“At one time there was an effort to break up the dance of the _seises_,” Pemberton interrupted. “Some busybody complained to the Pope that it was a heathenish thing. The result of the meddling was a papal bull ordering that the dancing should stop when the dresses were worn out. That was long and long ago; the dresses have not worn out yet. They are renewed a piece at a time, one year a sleeve, another year a cap, so the day has never come when they are completely outworn. Our _seises_ still dance at Christmas, Corpus Christi, and the feast of the Conception--that’s my wife’s _fiesta_, you know.”