Wanderings in Spain. Gautier Théophile
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of the military, which is the case in all garrison towns. In the pit, the spectators stand as in the most primitive theatres. There was, in truth, but a row of candles and a candle-snuffer wanting to give the place the appearance of the Hôtel de Bourgogne; the lamps, however, were enclosed by thin plates of glass, disposed in the shape of a melon, and united at the top by a circle of tin: this was certainly no great sign of an advanced state of the industrial arts. The orchestra, which consisted of one row of musicians, almost all of whom played brass instruments, blew most valiantly on their cornets-à-piston an air which was always the same, and recalled to one's recollection the flourishes of the band at Franconi's.
Our Herculean compatriots raised immense weights, and bent a considerable number of iron bars, to the great delight of the assembly; while the lighter of the two made an ascent upon the tight rope, and performed a variety of other feats, rather stale in Paris, but new, probably, to the population of Vittoria. During this time we were dying with impatience in our stalls, and I was cleaning the glass of my lorgnette with a furious degree of activity, in order not to lose anything of the baile nacional. At last, the supports of the tight-rope were loosened, and the stage-carpenters, dressed as Turks, cleared away the weights and all the other paraphernalia of the Herculeses. Think, dear reader, of the frightful anxiety of two enthusiastic and romantic young Frenchmen about to behold, for the first time, a Spanish dance … in Spain!
At last the curtain rose upon a scene which seemed to entertain a feeble desire, which was certainly not gratified, of being enchanting and fairy-like. The cornets-à-piston played, with more fury than ever, the strain already described, and the baile nacional advanced in the form of a danseur and danseuse, armed with a pair of castagnettes each. Never have I seen anything more sad and lamentable than these two miserable ruins qui ne se consolaient pas entre eux: a penny theatre never bore upon its worm-eaten boards a couple more used-up, more worn-out, more toothless, more blear-eyed, more bald, and more dilapidated. The wretched woman, who had besmeared herself with bad Spanish white, had a sky-blue complexion, which recalled to your mind the Anacreontic pictures of a person who had died of cholera, or been drowned some time; the two dabs of rouge that she had placed upon her prominent cheek-bones, to add a little brilliancy to her fishy eyes that seemed as if they had been boiled, contrasted strangely with the aforesaid blue. With her veiny and emaciated hands she shook a pair of cracked castagnettes, which chattered like the teeth of a man who has got a fever, or like the wires of a skeleton in motion. From time to time, she stretched, with a desperate effort, the relaxed fibres of her calves, and managed to raise her poor old baluster-looking leg, so as to produce a nervous little capriole, like a dead frog submitted to the operation of the voltaic battery, and, for a second, to cause the copper spangles of the doubtful rags which served her for a robe, to sparkle and glisten. As for the man, he kept fluttering about most horribly in his own corner; he rose and fell flatly, like a bat crawling along upon its stumps; he looked like a grave-digger burying himself. His forehead, wrinkled like a boot, and his goat-like cheeks, gave him a most fantastic air: if, instead of castagnettes, he had only had a Gothic rebec in his hands, he might have set up to lead the Dance of Death at Basle.
During all the time the dance lasted, they did not once raise their eyes on one another; it struck you that they were frightened of their reciprocal ugliness, and feared lest they should burst into tears at seeing themselves so old, so decrepit, and so mournful. The man, especially, avoided his companion as if she had been a spider, and appeared to shiver in his old parchment skin every time the figure of the dance forced him to approach her. This lively bolero lasted five or six minutes, after which the fall of the curtain put an end to the torture of these two wretched beings, … and to ours.
Such was the specimen of the bolero which greeted our poor eyes, so enamoured of "local colouring." Spanish dancers exist only at Paris, like the shells which are only found at the curiosity-shops, and never on the sea shore. O Fanny Elssler, who art now in America, among the savages! even before going to Spain, we always had an idea that it was thou who inventedst the cachucha!
We went to bed rather disappointed. In the middle of the night we were woke up to resume our journey. The cold was still intense, to a Siberian extent; this is accounted for by the height of the table-land we were crossing, and the snow by which we were surrounded. At Miranda, our trunks were once more examined, and then we entered Old Castile (Castilla la Vieja), the kingdom of Castile and Leon, symbolically represented by a lion holding a shield studded with castles. These lions, which are repeated until you are sick of them, are generally of a greyish granite, and have rather an imposing heraldic appearance.
Between Ameyugo and Cubo, small insignificant towns, where we changed mules, the landscape is extremely picturesque; the mountains contract and draw near one another, while immense perpendicular rocks, as steep as cliffs, rise up at the road-side. On the left, a torrent, crossed by a bridge with a truncated ogive arch, whirls round and round at the bottom of a ravine, turns a mill, and covers with spray the stones that stop its course. That nothing may be wanting to complete the effect, a gothic church, falling to ruin, with its roof staved in, and its walls covered with parasite plants, rises in the midst of the rocks; in the background is seen the vague and bluish outline of the Sierra. The view is certainly very fine, but the passage of Pancorbo carries off the palm for singularity and grandeur. There the rocks leave only just room enough for the road, and there is one point where two immense granite masses, leaning towards one another, give you the idea of a gigantic bridge, which has been cut in the middle, to stop the march of an army of Titans. A second, but smaller, arch, pierced through the thickness of the rock, adds still more to the illusion. Never did a scene-painter imagine a more picturesque and more admirably-contrived scene. When you are accustomed to the flat views of plains, the astonishing effects met with at every step, in the mountains, appear impossible and fabulous.
The posada where we stopped to dine had a stable for a vestibule. This architectural arrangement is invariably repeated in all Spanish posadas, and to reach your room you are obliged to pass behind the cruppers of the mules. The wine, which was blacker than usual, had a certain taste of goat-skin sufficiently local. The maidservants of the inn wore their hair hanging down to the middle of their backs, but, with this exception, their dress was the same as that of French women of the lower classes. The national costumes are, in general, seldom preserved, save in Andalusia, and, at present, there are very few ancient costumes in Castile. The men wore the pointed hat, edged with velvet and silk tufts, or a wolf-skin cap of rather ferocious shape, and the inevitable tobacco or dirty-coloured mantle. Their faces, however, had nothing characteristic about them.
Between Pancorbo and Burgos we fell in with three or four little villages, such as Briviesca, Castil de Peones, and Quintanapalla, half in ruins, as dry as pumice-stone, and of the colour of a toast. I doubt whether Decamps ever found in the heart of Asia Minor, any walls more roasted, more reddened, more tawny, more seedy, more crusty, and more scratched over, than these. Along these said walls wandered carelessly certain asses, who are decidedly well worth the Turkish ones, and which I would advise him to go and study. The Turkish ass is a fatalist, and, as is evident from his humble air, resigned to the blows which Fate has in store for him, and which he endures without a murmur. The Castilian ass has a more philosophical and deliberate look; he is aware that people cannot do without him; he makes one of the family; he has read Don Quixote, and he flatters himself that he is descended in a straight line from the celebrated donkey of Sancho Panza. Side by side with these asses were also dogs of the purest blood and most superb breed, with splendid claws, broad backs, and beautiful ears, and among the rest some large greyhounds, in the style of Paul Veronese and Velasquez, of most magnificent size and beauty, not to speak of some dozen muchachos, or boys, whose eyes glistened in the midst of their rags, like so many black diamonds.
Old Castile is, doubtless, so called, on account of the great number of old women you meet there; and what old women! The witches in "Macbeth" crossing the heath of Dunsinane, to prepare their diabolical cookery, are charming young girls in comparison: the abominable hags in the capricious productions of Goya, which I had till then looked upon as monstrous nightmares and chimeras, are but portraits frightfully like; most of these old women have a beard like mouldy cheese, and moustaches like French grenadiers; and then, their dress! You might take a piece of cloth, and work hard ten years to dirty, to rub, to tear, to patch, and to make it lose all traces of its original colour, and you would