Anthony Trollope

“ It was as a boy that she treated me; but, on looking at that befringed young Spanish Don—who was not, apparently, my elder in age—she had recognised a man. However, I said nothing further till I reached the summit. One cannot speak with manly dignity while one is out of breath on a staircase.
“There, John,” she said, stretching her hands away over the fair plain of the Guadalquivir, as soon as we stood against the parapet; “is not that lovely?”
I would not deign to notice this. “Maria,” I said, “I think that you are too hard upon my countrymen?”
“Too hard! no; for I love them. ”

“ I should leave Seville as quickly as I could, and should certainly not again put myself in the way of the Marquis D’Almavivas. Indeed, I dreaded the moment that I should be first alone with her, and should find myself forced to say something indicative of my feelings—to hear something also indicative of feelings. I had come out this morning resolved to demand my rights and to exercise them—and now my only wish was to run away. I hated the marquis, and longed to be alone that I might cast his button from me. To think that a man should be so ruined by such a trifle! ”

“ No one who knows by sight what an English gentleman is, could have doubted that; but I did acknowledge to myself that they should have remembered that the edifice they were treading was a church, and that the silence they were invading was the cherished property of a courteous people.
“They are all just the same as big boys,” said Maria. The colour instantly flew into my face, and I felt that it was my duty to speak up for my own countrymen. The word “boys” especially wounded my ears. ”

“ But my Spaniard did not look at like a hog in armour. He walked slowly down the plank into the boat, whistling lowly but very clearly a few bars from a opera tune. It was plain to see that he was master of himself, of his ornaments, and of his limbs. He had no appearance of thinking that men were looking at him, or of feeling that he was beauteous in his attire;—nothing could be more natural than his foot-fall, or the quiet glance of his cheery gray eye. He walked up to the captain, who held the helm, and lightly raised his hand to his cap. ”

“ But Maria, even at that age, had about her a quiet sustained decision of character quite unlike anything I had seen in English girls. I used to hear, and do still hear, how much more flippant is the education of girls in France and Spain than in England; and I know that this is shown to be the result of many causes—the Roman Catholic religion being, perhaps, chief offender; but, nevertheless, I rarely see in one of our own young women the same power of a self-sustained demeanour as I meet on the Continent. It goes no deeper than the demeanour, people say. ”

“ A fellow that dresses himself smart for fairs, and will be seen hanging about with the bull-fighters. What would be a sporting fellow in England—only he won’t drink and curse like a low man on the turf there. Come, shall we go and speak to him?”
“I can’t talk to him,” said I, diffident of my Spanish. I had received lessons in England from Maria Daguilar; but six weeks is little enough for making love, let alone the learning of a foreign language.
“Oh! I’ll do the talking. You’ll find the language easy enough before long. It soon becomes the same as English to you, when you live among them.” ”

“ Beneath those deep black eyes there lay a well of love, good, honest, homely love, love of father and husband and children that were to come—of that love which loves to see the loved ones prospering in honesty. ”

“ I feared that the path of my true love would run too smooth. When Maria came to our house, my mother and elder sister seemed to be quite willing that I should be continually alone with her; and she had not been there ten days before my father, by chance, remarked that there was nothing old Mr. Daguilar valued so highly as a thorough feeling of intimate alliance between the two families which had been so long connected in trade. I was never told that Maria was to be my wife, but I felt that the same thing was done without words ”

“ A Spaniard never forgets what is personally due either to himself or his neighbours. If he is eating an onion, he eats it as an onion should be eaten.”
“In such matters as that he is very grand, no doubt,” said I, angrily.
“And why should you not eat an onion properly, John? Now, I heard a story yesterday from Don—about two Englishmen, which annoyed me very much.” I did not exactly catch the name of the Don in question but I felt through every nerve in my body that it was the man who had been talking to her on the plaza. ”

“ I myself am inclined to be stout, my hair is light, my nose broad, I have no hair on my upper lip, and my whiskers are rough and uneven. “I could punch your head though, my fine fellow,” said I to myself, when I saw that he placed himself at Maria’s side, “and think very little of the achievement.”
The wretch went on with us round the plaza for some quarter of an hour talking Spanish with the greatest fluency, and she was every whit as fluent. Of course I could not understand a word that they said. Of all positions that a man can occupy, I think that that is about the most uncomfortable ”

“ The peaks are glorious with more than the beauty of earth and rock and vegetation. He dreams of some mysterious grandeur of design which tempts him on under the hot sun, and over the sharp rock, till he has reached the mountain goal which he had set before him. ”

“ It had been agreed between us for two or three days before this, that we were to rise early on the following morning for the sake of ascending the tower of the cathedral, and visiting the Giralda, as the iron figure is called, which turns upon a pivot on the extreme summit. We had often wandered together up and down the long dark gloomy aisle of the stupendous building, and had, together, seen its treasury of art; but as yet we had not performed the task which has to be achieved by all visitors to Seville ”

“ There was no marquis there then, and we were the only Englishmen on board.”
“It was on Thursday, certainly, because it was well known in Seville that he arrived on that day. You must have remarked him because he talks English perfectly—though by-the-bye, these men would go on chattering before him about himself as though it were impossible that a Spaniard should know their language. They are ignorant of Spanish, and they cannot bring themselves to believe that any one should be better educated than themselves.” ”

“ An English husband might do very well, the interests of the firm might make such an arrangement desirable, such a mariage de convenance—so I argued to myself—might be quite compatible with—with heaven only knows what delights of superterrestial romance, from which I, as being an English thick-headed lump of useful coarse mortality, was to be altogether debarred. ”

“ The building on each side was covered by trellis-work; and beautiful creepers, vines, and parasite flowers, now in the full magnificence of the early summer, grew up and clustered round the windows. Every inch of wall was covered, so that none of the glaring whitewash wounded the eye. In the four corners of the patio were four large orange-trees, covered with fruit. ”

“ And then she spoke in Spanish to the custodian of the bells, who is usually to be found in a little cabin up there within the tower. “He says that they went up shouting like demons,” continued Maria; and it seemed to me that she looked as though I ought to be ashamed of the name of an Englishman. “They may not be so solemn in their demeanour as Spaniards,” I answered; “but, for all that, there may be quite as much in them.”
We then again began to mount, and before we had ascended much farther we passed my three countrymen. ”

“ On the 17th April I did sail, and felt still very like a bale of goods. I had received one letter from her, in which she merely stated that her papa would have a room ready for me on my arrival; and, in answer to that, I had sent an epistle somewhat longer, and, as I then thought, a little more to the purpose. Her turn of mind was more practical than mine, and I must confess my belief that she did not appreciate my poetry. ”

“ She had told me once that it behoved her to consult a friend in Seville as to the expediency of her marriage with me. Was this the friend whom she had wished to consult? If so, she need not trouble herself. Under such circumstances I should decline the connection! And I resolved that I would find out how this might be. A man who proposes to take a woman to his bosom as his wife, has a right to ask for information—ay, and to receive it too. ”

“ That mouth can speak words of wisdom, of very useful wisdom—though of poetry it has latterly uttered little that was original. Poetry and romance! They are splendid mountain views seen in the distance. So let men be content to see them, and not attempt to tread upon the fallacious heather of the mystic hills.
In the first week of my sojourn in Seville I spoke no word of overt love to Maria, thinking, as I confess, to induce her thereby to alter her mode of conduct to myself. “She knows that I have come here to make love to her—to repeat my offer ”

“ We are always abused; but, nevertheless, no people are so welcome. At any rate, we pay for the mischief we do.” I was angry with myself the moment the words were out of my mouth, for, after all, there is no feeling more mean than that pocket-confidence with which an Englishman sometimes swaggers. ”

“ The fellow was thorough good-natured, and why should I not indulge my curiosity?
“You’ll upset him if you don’t take care,” said Johnson; for I had got fast hold of him by one ankle, and was determined to finish the survey completely.
“Oh, no, I shan’t,” said I; “a bull-fighting chap can surely stand on one leg. But what I wonder at is, how on earth he can afford it!” Whereupon Johnson again began to interrogate him in Spanish. ”

“ And then, bowing to us both, he walked away down into the cabin.
“Upon my word he is a deuced well-mannered fellow,” said I.
“You shouldn’t have offered him money,” said Johnson; “a Spaniard does not like it.”
“Why, I thought you could do nothing without money in this country. Doesn’t every one take bribes?”
“Ah! yes; that is a different thing; but not the price of a button. By Jove! he understood English, too. ”

“ Daguilar has always been on the spot. He was, I believe, born in Spain, but he came very early to England; he married an English wife, and his sons had been educated exclusively in England. His only daughter, Maria Daguilar, did not pass so large a proportion of her early life in this country, but she came to us for a visit at the age of seventeen, and when she returned I made up my mind that I most assuredly would go after her. ”

“ I hope he doesn’t mind it.”
“Oh! no; he won’t think anything about it,” said Johnson. “That sort of fellows don’t. I dare say we shall see him in the bull-ring next Sunday, and then we’ll make all right with a glass of lemonade.”
And so our adventure ended with the man of the gold ornaments. I was sorry that I had spoken English before him so heedlessly, and resolved that I would never be guilty of such gaucherie again. But, then, who would think that a Spanish bull-fighter would talk a foreign language? ”

“ It is its deep gloom with which the stranger is so greatly struck on his first entrance. In a region so hot as the south of Spain, a cool interior is a main object with the architect, and this it has been necessary to effect by the exclusion of light ”