Edmondo De Amicis

“ Now for the espada. It is a solemn moment, the crisis of the drama. The crowd is still, the ladies lean forward in their boxes, the king rises to his feet. The famous Frascuelo, holding in one hand the sword and in the other the muleta, a piece of red stuff fastened to a stick, enters the arena, presents himself before the royal box, raises his cap, and in a poetic phrase consecrates to the king the bull that he is about to kill; then, tossing his cap in the air, as if to say, “Victory or death!” followed by a splendid train of capeadores, he advances resolutely toward the bull. ”

“ It is a rare thing to hear any one speak or read a hundred words before an audience without sooner or later recognizing the burden of the song in Lepanto, the Discovery of America, or the War of Independence, the mention of which always elicits a burst of applause.
And it is precisely this tradition of the War of Independence that constitutes to the Spanish people a powerful inherent force. One who has never lived in Spain for a long or short period cannot believe that a war, however fortunate and glorious, could leave to the people so steadfast a faith in their national valor. ”

“ The circus is crowded full, and presents a spectacle of which it is impossible to form an idea unless one has seen it: it is a sea of heads, hats, fans, and hands waving in the air; on the side where sit the better classes in the shade all is dark; on the other side, in the sun, where the common people sit, a thousand brilliant colors of vesture, parasols, and paper fans—an immense masquerade.
There is not room enough for another child; the crowd is as compact as a phalanx; no one can go out, and it is difficult even to move one’s arms. ”

“ It is not a single promenade: there are ten avenues, one beside another, and each more beautiful than the last—streets for driving, streets for riding, walks for persons who like a crowd, and walks for those who prefer to be alone, divided from each other by endless hedges of myrtle, bordered and broken by gardens and groves, in which appear statues and fountains, and little footpaths which cross each other. On fête-days one may there enjoy a charming spectacle. From one end of the avenues to the other pass two processions of people, carriages, and horsemen, going in opposite directions. ”

“ It is not the activity of a busy people: it is the vivacity of a high-spirited race; it is a Carnival gaiety, an idleness that cannot rest and overflows in a feverish desire for pleasure, which{165} seizes one and holds him fast or drives him around like a reel and forbids him to leave the square—a curiosity which never wearies, a happy desire to be amused, to think of nothing, to talk small talk, to stroll about and laugh. Such is the famous plaza of the Puerta del Sol.
An hour spent there is enough to make one familiar with the people of Madrid in their various aspects. ”

“ After the theatres are closed one finds all the cafés crowded, the city illuminated, the streets filled with countless carriages, just as in the early evening. One feels a little sad on coming out of a theatre in a foreign country, there are so many beautiful creatures, and not one of them deigns to bestow so much as a glance upon one. But an Italian finds one comfort in Madrid. The actors almost always sing Italian operas, and they sing in Italian, and so, as you return to your lodging, you hear them humming in the words of your own language the airs which you have known from infancy. ”

“ A suburb of vast proportions, almost another city, extends toward the north, and on every side new houses break the old enclosure, spread over the fields, even to the foot of the hills, range themselves in endless rows until they reach the neighboring villages, and on all the circling hills rise villas and palaces and factories, which dispute the land and crowd each other as they rise even higher and higher, forming a noble coronet about the brow of the city. Everywhere they are creating, transforming, renewing; the people work and prosper, and Barcelona flourishes. ”

“ The artists do not all regard him in the same manner, but they love him above all others, and they are not able to divorce their admiration from their love.
Murillo is not merely a great painter; he is a great soul. He has won more than glory: he has won the love of Spain. He is more than a sovereign master of the beautiful; he is a benefactor, an inspiration to noble deeds, for a lovely image, when once seen on his canvas, is carried in the heart throughout life with a feeling of gratitude and religious devotion. ”

“ Meantime, as we were approaching the Pyrenees, I amused myself by observing the increasing difference in the pronunciation of the passengers who entered the carriage; by remarking how the French language died, so to speak, into the Spanish; by feeling how near Spain was growing until Perpignan was reached; and as I hurried into a diligence I heard the first Buenos dias and Buen viaje, so pure and sonorous that the words gave me infinite pleasure. ”

“ Surely there has never existed in the world a people with greater enthusiasm for their history than the Spanish. It is incredible. The boy who shines your boots, the porter who carries your valise, the mendicant who begs for alms, raises his head with flashing eyes at the names of Charles V., Philip II., Hernando Cortez, and Don John of Austria, as if they are heroes of his own time, and as if he had witnessed their triumphal entry into the city only the day before. ”

“ The band of toreros separates, the espadas leap over the barrier, the capeadores scatter through the arena, waving their red and yellow capas; the picadores retire to await their turn; the rest spur their horses and take their positions to the left of the toril at a distance of twenty paces apart, with their backs to the barrier and their lances in rest.
It is a moment of keen excitement, of unexpressible anxiety: all eyes are fixed on the door by which the bull will enter; all hearts are beating high; a profound silence broods over the whole circus ”

“ Only the elephant—a huge elephant which still lives in the gardens of Buen Retiro—carried the day; the bull attacked him, and he simply placed his head on the bull’s back and pressed, and the pressure was so delicate that his reckless assailant was crushed as flat as a pancake.
But it is not easy to imagine what skill, what courage, and what imperturbable tranquillity of mind must be possessed by a man who with his sword faces an animal that kills lions, attacks elephants, and tears in pieces, crushes, and covers with blood everything that he touches. And there are men who face them every day. ”

“ In the midst of these there still lives the memory of Quintana, the great poet of the Revolution; of Espronceda, the Byron of Spain; of a Nicasio Gallego, a Martinez della Rosa, and a duke di Rivas. But the tumult, the disorder, and the discord burst through like a torrent and engulf everything.
To leave allegory, Spanish literature finds itself in a condition similar to ours—a group of illustrious writers whose powers are failing, but who have had two grand sources of inspiration, religion and love of country, or both in one—men who have left a distinct and enduring mark in the field of art ”

“ When they speak of Spain modesty is thrown aside, even by men of extremely modest nature, without the least indication in their faces of that exaltation because of which one may sometimes pardon intemperate speech. They boast in cold blood, from habit, without being conscious of so doing. In the speeches of Parliament, in the newspaper articles, in the writings of the Academy, they speak of the Spanish people without circumlocution as a nation of heroes, the great nation, the wonder of the world, the glory of the ages. ”

“ The thought that from the moment you step out of the house in the morning until you return to it at night you will do nothing but pass from curiosity to curiosity, from pleasure to pleasure, that everything you see will seem new, and that at every step you will be learning something, and that all will be impressed upon your memory so long as you live; that through the livelong day you will be as free as air and as gay as a lark, without a thought in the world unless it be to amuse yourself, and that by amusing yourself you are at the same time gaining health of body, mind, and soul ”

“ Meanwhile one hears in the street the shouts of the people, the firing of guns, and the beating of drums; at every moment some artist deserts the ranks and goes to wave a banner among the crowd; they separate in twos and threes and in larger groups and go to swell the crowd of journalists; the turmoil and the continuous turning of Fortune’s wheel dissuade the most industrious from lengthy works; it is in vain that some solitary figure in the crowd cries, “In the name of Cervantes, stop!” ”

“ The banderillas for the mayor! fire for the mayor!”
The agony of the bull is terrible. Sometimes the torero does not strike where he should, and the sword is buried to the hilt, but not in the direction of the heart. Then the bull commences to run about the arena with the sword sticking in his body, sprinkling the ground with blood, bellowing deeply, writhing and twisting in a thousand ways to free himself from that torture; and in his impetuous course sometimes the sword flies out, sometimes it is driven deeper in and causes death. ”

“ The Catalans do not wish to be thought of as on a common footing with the Spaniards of the other provinces. “We are Spaniards,” they say, “but, be it understood, of Catalonia—a people, to be brief, that labor and think; a people to whose ears the din of machinery is more pleasant than the music of the guitar. We do not envy Andalusia her romance, the praises of her poets, nor the paintings of her artists; we are content to be the most serious and industrious people of Spain.” ”

“ There are no grand palaces, no ancient monuments of art, but wide, clean, cheerful streets, flanked by houses painted in lively colors, and interrupted by open squares of a thousand different forms, as though they have been dropped here and there by chance, and in every square there is a garden, a fountain, and a statuette. Some streets run up hill in such a manner that on turning into them one sees the sky at the end, and one imagines that they open into the country, but when one has{156} reached the top another long street stretches off as far as one can see. ”

“ The walls are covered for long spaces with show-bills and placards; in the shops there is an incessant coming and going; the cafés are crowded; everywhere there is the rush of a great city. Alcalá (Castle) Street, so wide that it looks like a rectangular square, cuts Madrid in half from the Puerta del Sol eastward, and ends in a vast park which extends all along one side of the city and contains gardens, promenades, open squares, theatres, bull-rings, triumphal arches, museums, palaces, and fountains. ”

“ While we are on the subject of political eloquence let us glance at literature.
Imagine a hall in the Academy full of noise and confusion. A crowd of poets, novelists, and writers of every sort, nearly all of them having a French air in their expression and manner, although very studious to conceal it. They are reading and declaiming from their own works, each one trying to drown the voice of the others, to the end that he may make himself heard by the people who crowd the galleries, while they, on their part, put through the time by reading the papers and discussing politics. ”

“ Yes, for boldness of design, for strength of color, and for the thousand other merits which won for Ribera the fame of a most powerful painter. But true and great art—ah, it is not that! In those faces there is none of that celestial light, that immortal ray of the soul, which reveals with sublime{187} pathos, noble aspirations, those “subtle flashes” and “limitless desires”—that light which draws the eye from the sores and calls down the thought of heaven. There is only the crude suffering which causes repulsion and fear; there are only weariness of life and the presentiment of death ”

“ But, worthy of attention above everything else, the museums of armor and painting, and the Naval Museum, to each of which one might easily dedicate a volume.
The armory of Madrid is one of the most beautiful in the world. As you enter the vast hall your heart gives a leap, your blood tingles, and you stand still on the threshold like one demented. A complete army of cavalry in full armor, with drawn swords and lances in rest, gleaming and terrible, rushes toward you like a legion of spectres. ”

“ The espada is frequently obliged to give the bull a second thrust, and not rarely a third or a fourth; the blood flows in torrents; all the capas of the capeadores are sprinkled; the espada is besmeared and the barrier bespattered; everything is covered with blood; the indignant spectators load the torero with abuse. Sometimes the bull falls to the ground badly wounded, but does not die, and lies there motionless with his head high and threatening, as if he would say, “Come on, assassins, if you have the courage!” ”

“ I have spoken only of the theatres; at Madrid there is a concert, one may safely say, every day. There are concerts in the theatres, concerts in the academy halls, concerts in the streets, and then a company of strolling musicians who deafen you at all hours of the day. After all this one has a right to ask why it is that a people so infatuated with music that it seems as necessary, so to speak, as the air they breathe, have never produced any great master of the art. The Spanish will not be comforted. ”

“ Sometimes a single bull kills five horses; sometimes in a corrida twenty are killed; all the picadores are drenched with blood; smoking entrails are scattered through the arena, and the bulls grow tired of slaughter.
The toreros also have their ugly moments. The picadores now and then, instead of falling under the horse, fall between the horse and the bull; then the bull plunges forward to kill them; the crowd gives a cry, but a brave capeador throws his capa over the bull’s eyes and at the risk of his own life saves that of his comrade. ”

“ The choir is a veritable museum of sculpture of incredible richness. The cloister is full of tombs surmounted by recumbent statues, and about them runs a profusion of bas-reliefs. In the chapels, around the choir, in the passages of the sacristy, everywhere, are paintings by the greatest Spanish masters, statuettes, columns, and ornaments. The great altar, the organs, the doors, the staircases, the gratings, everything, is grand and magnificent, and at the same time arouses and rebukes one’s admiration. ”

“ Everything one sees is in proportion to the immensity of the place: sidewalks as wide as streets, cafés as wide as squares, a fountain the size of a lake—on every side a dense, rapidly-shifting crowd, a discordant roar, a subtle air of cheerfulness and gaiety in the faces, the gestures, and the colors, which makes one feel that neither the people nor the city is entirely strange, and gives one an insane desire to join in the uproar, to salute everybody, to run here and there, as if one were revisiting those sights and people rather than seeing them for the first time. ”

“ In every group they are playing dominoes. This is the most popular game among the Spaniards. In the cafés from twilight to midnight one hears a loud, continuous, discordant sound, like the rattling of hailstones, from the turning and returning of thousands of dominoes by hundreds of hands, so that one is obliged to raise one’s voice to be heard by one’s next neighbor. The commonest beverage is the exquisite chocolate of Spain, which is generally served in little cups, and is about as thick as preserved juniper-berries and hot enough to scald one’s throat. ”