Wanderings in Spain. Gautier Théophile
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barbarous to those connoisseurs who read Carême, Brillat-Savarin, Grimat de la Reynière, and Mons. de Cussy; it has, however, its charm, and cannot fail to please the Eclectics and Pantheists. Next come fowls cooked in oil, for butter is an article unknown in Spain; trout or salt cod, roasted lamb, asparagus, and salad; and, for dessert, little macaroons, almonds browned in a frying-pan, and of a most delicious taste, with goats'-milk cheese, queso de Burgos, which enjoys a high reputation, that it sometimes deserves. As a finish, they bring you a set of bottles with Malaga, sherry, brandy, aguardiente, resembling French aniseed, and a little cup (fuego) filled with live cinders to light the cigarettes. Such, with a few trifling variations, is the invariable meal in all Spain.
We left Astigarraga in the middle of the night. As there was no moon, there is naturally a gap in our account. We passed through the small town of Ernani, the name of which conjures up the most romantic recollections; but we did not perceive aught save a heap of huts and rubbish vaguely sketched on the obscurity. We traversed Tolosa without stopping. We saw some houses decorated with frescoes, and gigantic blazons sculptured in stone. It was market-day, and the market-place was covered with asses, mules, picturesquely harnessed, and peasants of singular and wild appearance.
By dint of ascending and descending, of passing over torrents on bridges of uncemented stone, we at last reached Vergara, where we were to dine. We experienced a decided degree of satisfaction on our arrival, for we had almost forgotten the jicara de chocolate, which we had gulped down, half asleep, in the inn at Astigarraga.
CHAPTER III
FROM VERGARA TO BURGOS
Vergara – Vittoria; the Baile National and the French Hercules – The Passage of Pancorbo – The Asses and the Greyhounds – Burgos – A Spanish Fonda – Galley Slaves in Cloaks – The Cathedral – The Coffer of the Cid.
At Vergara, which is the place where the treaty between Espartero and Maroto was concluded, I saw, for the first time, a Spanish priest. His appearance struck me as rather grotesque, although, thank heaven, I entertain no Voltairean ideas with regard to the clergy; but the caricature of Beaumarchais' Basile involuntarily suggested itself to my recollection. Just fancy a black cassock, with a cloak of the same colour, and to crown the whole, an immense, prodigious, phenomenal, hyperbolical, and Titanic hat, of which no epithet, however inflated and gigantic, can give any idea at all approaching the reality. This hat is, at least, three feet long; the brim is turned up, and forms, before and behind the hat, a kind of horizontal roof. It would be difficult to invent a more uncouth and fantastic shape; this, however, did not prevent the worthy priest from presenting a very respectable appearance, and walking about with the air of a man whose conscience is perfectly tranquil about the form of his head-dress; instead of bands, he wore a little collar (alzacuello), blue and white, like the priests in Belgium.
Beyond Mondragon, which is the last small market-town, the last pueblo of the province of Guipuzcoa, we entered the province of Alava, and were not long before we found ourselves at the foot of the hill of Salinas. The Montagnes Russes3 are nothing compared to this, and, at first sight, the idea of a carriage passing over it appears as preposterous as that of your walking head downwards on the ceiling like a fly. This prodigy was however effected, thanks to six oxen which were harnessed on before the mules. Never in my whole life did I hear so horrible a disturbance; the mayoral, the zagal, the escopeteros, the postilion, and the oxen-drivers, tried which could excel each other in hooting, swearing, using their whips, and exercising their goads; they thrust forward the wheels, held up the body of the coach behind, and pulled on the mules by their halters and the oxen by their horns, with a most incredible amount of fury and vehemence. The coach thus placed at the end of this long string of animals and men, produced a most astonishing effect. There were, at least, fifty paces between the first and last beast in the team. I must not forget to mention, en passant, the steeple of Salinas, which has a very pleasing Saracenic form. From the top of the hill the traveller beholds on looking back, the Pyrenees rising one above the other until lost in the distance; they resemble immense pieces of rich velvet drapery, thrown together by chance and rumpled by the whim of a Titan. At Royane, which is a little further on, I observed a magical effect in optics. A snowy mountain-top (Sierra Nevada), that the proximity of the other mountains had till then veiled from our sight, suddenly appeared standing out from the sky, which was of a blue so dark as to be almost black. Soon afterwards, at all the edges of the table-land we were traversing, more mountains raised, in a most curious manner, their summits loaded with snow and bathed in clouds. This snow was not compact, but divided into thin veins like sides of gauze worked with silver; it appeared still whiter from the contrast it formed with the azure and lilac tints of the precipices. The cold was tolerably severe, and became more intense in proportion as we advanced. The wind had not warmed itself by caressing the pale cheeks of these beautiful and chilly virgins, and came to us as icy as if it had arrived direct from the North or South Pole. We wrapped ourselves up as hermetically as we could in our cloaks, for it is extremely scandalous to have your nose frost-bitten in a torrid clime; I should not have cared had we been merely fried.
The sun was setting when we entered Vittoria; after threading all sorts of streets, of but middling architectural style and very bad taste, the coach stopped at the parador vejo, where our luggage was scrupulously examined. Our Daguerreotype especially alarmed the worthy custom-house officers a good deal; they approached it with the greatest precautions, like people who are afraid of being blown up; I think they imagined it to be an electrifying machine, and I took care not to undeceive them.
As soon as our things had been searched and our passports stamped, we had the right to scatter ourselves over the pavement of the town. We immediately took advantage of this, and, crossing a fine square surrounded by arcades, proceeded straightway to the church. The shades of night already filled the nave, and lowered with a mysterious and threatening look in obscure corners, where phantom-like forms might now and then be seen. A few small lamps, yellow and smoky, trembled ominously like stars in a fog. A sort of sepulchral chill came over me, and it was not without a slight feeling of dread that I heard a mournful voice murmur, just at my elbow, the stereotyped formula "Caballero, una limosina por l'amor de Dios." It was a poor wretch of a soldier who had been wounded, and who was asking an alms of us. In this country the soldiers beg; this is excusable on account of their miserable state of destitution, for they are paid very irregularly. In the church at Vittoria I became acquainted with those frightful sculptures in coloured wood, the use of which the Spaniards carry to such excess.
After a supper (cena) which caused us to regret that at Antigarraga, we suddenly thought of going to the play. We had been allured, as we passed along, by a pompous poster announcing the extraordinary performances of two French Herculeses, which were to terminate with a certain baile nacional (national dance), which we pictured to ourselves big with cachuchas, boleros, fandangos, and other diabolical dances.
The theatres in Spain have generally no façade, and are only distinguished from the houses around by two or three smoky lamps stuck before the door. We took two orchestra-stalls, surnamed places de lunette (asientos de luneta), and bravely precipitated ourselves into a corridor, where the floor was neither planked nor paved, but was nothing more or less than the bare earth. The frequenters of the place are not very particular about the uses to which they turn the walls of the corridor, but, by hermetically sealing our noses, we reached our places not more than half suffocated. When I add that smoking is perpetually practised between the acts, the reader will not have a very fragrant idea of a Spanish theatre.
The interior of the house is, however, more comfortable than the approaches to it promise; the boxes are tolerably arranged, and although the decorations are simple, they are fresh and clean. The asientos de luneta are armchairs placed in rows and numbered; there is no checktaker at the door to take your tickets, but a little boy comes round for them before the end of the performance; at the outer door you are merely asked for the card that admits you within the theatre.
We had hoped to find the true type of the Spanish woman, of which we had as yet seen but few specimens; but the ladies who filled the boxes and galleries had nothing Spanish about them save the mantilla and the fan: this was a good deal, it is true, but not sufficient. The audience was mostly
The well-known popular source of amusement to the Parisian pleasure-seeker of days now past.