Spanish Highways and Byways Part 17

"The Cemetery of the Poor is opposite the Civil Cemetery," said our cabman, "and they have from thirty to fifty burials a day. The keeper is a friend of mine. He shall show you all about."

A bare Castilian ridge rose before us, where a farmer, leaning on his scythe, was outlined against the sky like a silhouette of Death. And at last our cheery driver, humming bars from a popular light opera, checked his mettlesome old mare,--who plunged down hills and scrambled up as if she were running away from the bull-ring, where she must soon fulfil her martyrdom,--between two dismal graveyards. From the larger, on our right, tiptoed out a furtive man and peered into the cab as if he thought we had a coffin under the seat.

He proved a blood-curdling conductor, always speaking in a hoa.r.s.e whisper and glancing over his shoulder in a way to make the stoutest nerves feel ghosts, but he showed us, under that sunset sky, memorable sights--ranks upon ranks of gritty mounds marked with black, wooden crosses, a scanty grace for which the living often pay the price of their own bread that the dead they love may pa.s.s a year or two out of that hideous general fosse. Then the s.e.xton reluctantly led us to the unblessed, untended hollow across the way, where rows of brick sepulchres await the poor babies who die before the holy water touches them, where rec.u.mbent marbles press upon the dead who knew no upward reach of hope, and where defiant monuments, erected by popular subscription and often bearing the blazonry of a giant quill, denote the resting-places of freethinkers and the agitators of new ideas.

There were some Christian inscriptions, whether for Protestants or not I do not know, but to my two companions there was no distinction of persons in this unhallowed limbo.

Our dusty guide led us hurriedly from plot to plot.

"They say the mothers cheat the priests, and there are babies over yonder that ought to be here, for the breath was out of them before ever they were baptized. They say the priests had this man done to death one night, because he wrote against religion. He was only twenty-two. The club he belonged to put up that stone. They say there are evil words on it. But I don't know myself. I can't read, thanks to G.o.d. They say it was through reading and writing that most of these came here."

"But those are not evil words," I answered. "They are, 'Believe in Jesus and thou shalt be saved.'"

He hastily crossed himself, "Do me the favor not to read such words out loud. Here is another, where they say the words are words of h.e.l.l."

I held my peace this time, musing on that broad marble with its one deep-cut line, "The Death of G.o.d."

"And over there," he croaked, pointing with his clay-colored thumb, "is _Whiskers_."

The senorita, whose black eyes had been getting larger and larger, gave a little scream and fairly ran for the gate.

Spaniards have usually great sympathy for criminals, newspaper accounts of executions often closing with an entreaty for G.o.d's mercy on "this poor man's soul," but _Whiskers_, the Madrid sensation of a fortnight since, was a threefold murderer. Pa.s.sion-mad, he had shot dead in the open street a neighbor's youthful wife, held the public at bay with his revolver, and mortally wounded two Civil Guards, before he turned the fatal barrel on himself.

"His family wanted him laid over the way," continued that scared undertone at my ear, "but the bishop said no. A murderer like that was just as bad as infidels and Protestants, and should be buried out of grace."

I felt as if Superst.i.tion incarnate were walking by my side, and after one more look at that strangely peopled patch of unconsecrated ground, with its few untrimmed cypresses and straggling rose bushes, hillside slopes about and glory-flooded skies above, I gave Superst.i.tion a _peseta_, which he devoutly kissed, and returned to the cab, followed by the carol of a solitary bird.

I remember a similar experience in Cadiz. I had driven out with one of my Spanish hostesses to the large seaside cemetery, a mile beyond the gate. This is arranged in nine successive patios, planted with palms and cypresses. In the niches, seash.e.l.ls play a prominent part. The little angel images, as gay as ever, with their pink girdles and their purple wings, may be seen swinging in sh.e.l.ls, sleeping in sh.e.l.ls, and balancing on the edge of sh.e.l.ls to play their golden flutes. Near by is an English and German cemetery, with green-turfed mounds and a profusion of blossoming shrubs and flower beds. Not sure of the direction, as we were leaving the Catholic enclosure I asked a bandy-legged, leather-visaged old s.e.xton, who might have been the very one that dug Ophelia's grave, if the "Protestant cemetery" was at our right. He laid down his mattock, peered about among the mausolea to see if we were quite alone, winked prodigiously, and, drawing a bunch of keys from the folds of his black sash, started briskly down a by-path and signed to us to follow. He led us through stony pa.s.sages out beyond the sanctified ground into a dreary, oblong s.p.a.ce, a patch of weeds and sand, enclosed by the lofty sepulchral walls, but with a blessed strip of blue sky overhead.

"Here they are!" he chuckled. "They wouldn't confess, they died without the sacraments, and here they are."

Some names lettered on the wall seemed to be those of Dutch and Norwegian sailors, who had perhaps died friendless in this foreign port. There were pebble-strewn graves of Jews, and upright marbles from which the dead still seemed to utter voice: "I refuse the prayers of all the saints, and ask the prayers of honest human souls. I believe in G.o.d." And another, "G.o.d is knowledge." And another, "G.o.d is All that works for Wisdom and for Love."

"Are there burial services for these?" I inquired.

If the Church of England could have seen that crooked old s.e.xton go through his gleeful pantomime!

"There's one that comes with some, and they call him Pastor! And he sc.r.a.pes up a handful of dirt--so! And he flings it at the coffin--so!

And then he stands up straight and says, 'Dust to dust!' I've heard him say it myself."

"G.o.d of my soul!" cried the Spanish lady in horror, and to express her detestation of such a heathenish rite, she spat upon the ground.

The monarchs of Spain do not mingle their ashes. Who knows where Roderick sleeps? Or does that deathless culprit still lurk in mountain caverns, as tradition has it, wringing his wasted hands and tearing his white beard in unavailing penitence? The "Catholic kings,"

Ferdinand and Isabella, lie, not where they had planned, in that beautiful Gothic church of Toledo, _San Juan de los Reyes_, on whose outer walls yet hang the Moorish chains struck from the limbs of Christian captives, but in Granada, the city of their conquest, where they slumber proudly, although their coffins are of plainest lead and their last royal chamber a small and dusky vault. Pedro the Cruel is thrust away in a narrow wall-grave beneath the _Capilla Real_ of Seville cathedral. His brother, the Master of Santiago, whom he treacherously slew in one of the loveliest halls of the Alcazar, is packed closely in on his left, and Maria de Padilla, for whose sake he cut short the hapless life of Queen Blanche, on his right. Pleasant family discussions they must have at the witching hour of night, when they drag their numb bones out of those pigeon-holes for a brief respite of elbow room! San Fernando, the Castilian conqueror of Castile, canonized "because he carried f.a.gots with his own hands for the burning of heretics," is more commodiously accommodated in a silver sarcophagus in the chapel above, where Alfonso the Learned also has long leisure for thought. Another Alfonso and another Fernando, with another wife of Pedro the Cruel, keep their state in Santiago de Compostela, and still another Alfonso and two Sanchos have their splendid tombs in the _Capilla Mayor_ of Toledo cathedral, while in its _Capilla de los Reyes Nuevos_, a line descended from that brother whom Pedro murdered, sleeps the first John, with the second and third Henrys.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BULL-FIGHT OF TO-DAY]

Cordova cathedral, although this lovely mosque recks little of Christian majesties, has the ordinary equipment of an Alfonso and a Fernando, and the Royal Monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos shelters Alfonso VIII, with his queen, Eleanor of England. In less noted churches, one continually chances on them, _rey_ or _reina_, _infante_ or _infanta_, dreaming the centuries away in rich recesses of fretted marble and alabaster, with the shadow of great arches over them and the deep-voiced chant around.

But since Philip II created, in his own sombre likeness, the monastery of the Escorial, rising in angular austerity from a spur of the bleak Guadarrama Mountains, the royal houses of Austria and Bourbon have sought burial there. The first and chief in the dank series of sepulchral vaults, the celebrated _Panteon de los Reyes_, is an octagon of black marble, placed precisely under the high altar, and gloomily magnificent with jasper, porphyry, and gold. It has an altar of its own, on whose left are three recesses, each with four long shelves placed one above another for the sarcophagi of the kings of Spain, and on whose right are corresponding recesses for the queens.

As the guide holds his torch, we read the successive names of the great Charles I, founder of the Austrian line; the three Philips, in whom his genius dwindled more and more; and the half-witted Charles II, in whom it ign.o.bly perished. The coffin lid of Charles I has twice been lifted, once as late as 1871, in compliment to the visiting Emperor of Brazil, and even then that imperial body lay intact, with blackened face and open, staring eyes. The gilded bronze coffin of Philip II was brought to his bedside for his inspection in his last hour of life. After a critical survey he ordered a white satin lining and more gilt nails--a remarkable sense of detail in a man who had sent some ten thousand heretics to the torture.

Looking for the Bourbons, we miss the first of them all, the melancholy Philip V, who would not lay him down among these Austrians, but sleeps with his second queen, the strong-willed Elizabeth Farnese, in his cloudy retreat of San Ildefonso, within hearing of the fountains of La Granja. His eldest son, Luis the Well-Beloved, who died after a reign of seven months, rests here in the Escorial, but Fernando VI, also the son of Philip's first queen--that gallant little Savoyarde who died so young--was buried in Madrid. Charles III, best and greatest of the Spanish Bourbons, is here, the weak Charles IV, Fernando VII, "The Desired" and the Disgraceful, and Alfonso XII, while a stately sarcophagus is already reserved for Alfonso XIII.

To the cold society of these five Austrian and five Bourbon sovereigns are admitted nine royal ladies. Of these, the first three are in good and regular standing--the queen of Charles I and mother of Philip II, the fourth queen of Philip II and mother of Philip III, the queen of Philip III and mother of Philip IV. But here is an intruder. Philip IV, who had an especial liking for this grewsome vault, and used often to clamber into his own niche to hear ma.s.s, insisted on having both his French and Austrian queens interred here, although the first, Isabel of Bourbon, is not the mother of a Spanish king, the promising little Baltasar having died in boyhood. The brave girl-queen of Philip V is here, in double right as mother both of Luis and Fernando VI, and here is the wife of Charles III and mother of Charles IV. But of sorry repute are the last two queens, the wife of Charles IV and mother of Fernando VII, she who came hurrying down those slippery marble stairs in feverish delirium to scratch _Luisa_ with scissors on her selected coffin, and this other, Maria Cristina, wife of Fernando VII and mother of the dethroned Isabel, a daughter who did not mend the story.

It will not be long before she returns from her French exile to enter into possession of the sarcophagus that expects her here, even as another sumptuous coffin awaits the present regent. Pity it is for Isabel, whose name is still a byword in the Madrid cafes! But she always enjoyed hearing midnight ma.s.s in this dim and dreadful crypt, and will doubtless be glad to come back to her ancestors, such as they were, and take up her royal residence with them in "dust of human nullity and ashes of mortality."

XVIII

CORPUS CHRISTI IN TOLEDO

"A blackened ruin, lonely and forsaken, Already wrapt in winding-sheets of sand, So lies Toledo till the dead awaken, A royal spoil of Time's resistless hand."

--ZORRILLA: _Toledo_.

In the thirteenth century the doctrine of transubstantiation a.s.sumed especial importance. Miracle plays and cathedral gla.s.s told thrilling stories of attacks made by Jews on the sacred Wafer, which bled under their poniards or sprang from their caldrons and ovens in complete figure of the Christ. The festival of Corpus Christi, then established by Rome, was devoutly accepted in Spain and used to be celebrated with supreme magnificence in Madrid. Early in the reign of Philip IV, Prince Charles of England, who, with the adventurous Buckingham, had come in romantic fas.h.i.+on to the Spanish capital, hoping to carry by storm the heart of the Infanta, stood for hours in a balcony of the Alcazar, gazing silently on the glittering procession. How they swept by through the herb-strewn, tapestried streets--musicians, standard-bearers, cross-bearers, files of orphans from the asylums, six and thirty religious brotherhoods, monks of all the orders, barefoot friars, ranks of secular clergy and brothers of charity, the proud military orders of Alcantara, Calatrava, and Santiago, the Councils of the Indies, of Aragon, of Portugal, the Supreme Council of Castile, the City Fathers of Madrid, the Governmental Ministers of Spain and Spanish Italy, the Tribunal of the Holy Office, preceded by a long array of cloaked and hooded Familiars, bishops upon bishops in splendid, gold-enwoven vestments, priests of the royal chapel displaying the royal banner, bearers of the crosier and the sacramental vessels, the Archbishop of Santiago, royal chaplains and royal majordomos, royal pages with tall wax tapers, incense burners, the canopied mystery of the Eucharist, the king, the prince, cardinals, nuncio, the inquisitor general, the Catholic amba.s.sadors, the patriarch of the Indies, the all-powerful Count-Duke Olivares, grandees, lesser n.o.bility, gentlemen, and a display of Spanish and German troops, closed by a great company of archers. So overwhelming was that solemn progress, with its brilliant variety of sacerdotal vestments, knightly habits, robes of state and military trappings, its maces, standards, crosses, the flash of steel, gold, jewels, and finally the sheen of candles, the clouds of incense, the tinkling of silver bells before the _Santisimo Corpus_, that the heretic prince and his reckless companion fell to their knees. One Spanish author pauses to remark that for these, who could even then reject the open arms of the Mother Church, the a.s.sa.s.sin's blow and the Whitehall block were naturally waiting.

Such a pomp would have been worth the seeing, but we had arrived at Madrid almost three centuries too late. Catholic friends shrugged shoulder at mention of the Corpus procession, "_Vale poco._" And as for the famous _autos sacramentales_, which used to be celebrated at various times during the eight days of the Corpus solemnity, they may be read in musty volumes, but can be seen in the city squares no more.

Calderon is said to have written the trifling number of seventy-two, and Lope de Vega, whose fingers must have been tipped with pens, some four hundred.

If only our train, which then would not have been a train, had brought us, who then would not have come, to Madrid in season for a Corpus celebration under the Austrian dynasty, we could have attended an open-air theatre of a very curious sort. All the way to the _Plaza_, we would have seen festivity at its height, pantomimic dances, merry music, struttings of giants and antics of dwarfs, and perhaps groups of boys insulting cheap effigies of snakes, modelled after the monstrous _Tarasca_, carried in the Corpus parade in token of Christ's victory over the Devil. At intervals along the route, adorned with flowers and draperies, and reserved for the procession and the dramatic cars, would have been altars hung with rich stuffs from the Alcazar and the aristocratic palaces; silks and cloth of gold, brocades, velvets, and s.h.i.+mmering wefts of the Indies. The one-act play itself might be after the general fas.h.i.+on of the mediaeval Miracles,--verse dialogue, tuned to piety with chords of fun, for the setting forth of Biblical stories. Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, Moses feeding the Israelites with manna, the patience of Job, the trials of Joseph, David, and Daniel, were thus represented.

More frequently, the _auto sacramental_ belonged to the so-called Morality type of early Christian drama, being an allegorical presentation of human experience or exposition of church doctrine.

Such were "The Fountain of Grace," "The Journey of the Soul," "The Dance of Death," "The Pilgrim." Sometimes a Gospel parable, as the "Lost Sheep" or the "Prodigal Son," gave the dramatic suggestion. But these Spanish spectacles sought to a.s.sociate themselves, as closely as might be, with the Corpus wors.h.i.+p, and many of them bear directly, in one way or another, upon this sacrament.

If, for instance, we had chanced on the Madrid festival in 1681, we could have witnessed in the decorated _Plaza_, with its thronged balconies, the entrance of four scenic platforms or cars. The first, painted over with battles, bears a Gothic castle; the second, with pictures of the sea, a gallant s.h.i.+p; the third, a starry globe; the fourth, a grove and garden, whose central fountain is so shaped as to form, above, the semblance of an altar. In the complicated action of the play, when the Soul, besieged in her fortress by the Devil, whose allies are the World and the Flesh, calls upon Christ for succor, the hollow sphere of the third car opens, revealing the Lord enthroned in glory amid cherubim and seraphim; but the climax of the triumph is not yet. That stout old general, the Devil, rallies fresh forces to the attack, such subtle foes as Atheism, Judaism, and Apostasy, and whereas, before, the Senses bore the brunt of the conflict, it is the Understanding that girds on armor now. Yet in the final outcome not the Understanding, but Faith draws the veil from before the altar of the fourth car, and there, in the consecrated vessel for the holding of the Wafer, appears the "Pa.s.sion Child," the white bread from Heaven, "very flesh and very blood that are the price of the soul's salvation."

That is the way Spain kept her Corpus _fiesta_ in the good old times of Charles the Bewitched; but not now. After the procession, the bull-fight; and after the bull-fight, the latest vaudeville or ballet.

Last year it rained on Corpus Thursday, which fell on the first of June, and Madrid gave up the procession altogether. Some of the Opposition papers started the cry that this was shockingly irreligious in Silvela, but when the Government organs haughtily explained that it was the decision of the archbishop and Senor Silvela was not even consulted, the righteous indignation of the Liberals straightway subsided. The procession, which was to have been a matter of kettledrums and clarionets, soldiery, "coaches of respect" from the palace and the city corporation, and a full showing of the parochial clergy, did not seem to be missed by the people. Corpus has long ceased to be a chief event in the Capital.

There are a few cities in Spain, however, where the Corpus fete is maintained with something of the old gayety and splendor. Bustling Barcelona, never too busy for a frolic, keeps it merrily with an elaborate parade from the cathedral all about the city, and--delightful feature!--the distribution of flowers and sweetmeats among the ladies. The procession in Valencia resembles those of Holy Week in Seville. On litters strewn with flowers and thick-set with candle-lights are borne carved groups of sacred figures and richly attired images of Christ and the Virgin. But it is in lyric Andalusia that these pageantries are most at home. Among her popular _coplas_ is one that runs:--

"Thursdays three in the year there be, That s.h.i.+ne more bright than the sun's own ray-- Holy Thursday, Corpus Christi, And our Lord's Ascension Day."

Cadiz, like Valencia, carries the _pasos_ in the Corpus procession. In Seville, where the street displays of Holy Week are under the charge of the religious brotherhoods, or _cofradias_, Corpus Christi gives opportunity for the clergy and aristocracy to present a rival exhibition of sanctified luxury and magnificence.

But it is in beautiful belated Granada that the Corpus fete is now at its best. A brilliantly ill.u.s.trated programme, whose many-hued cover significantly groups a gamboge cathedral very much in the background, and a flower-crowned Andalusian maiden, draped in a Manila shawl, with a prodigious guitar at her feet, very much in the foreground, announces a medley of festivities extending over eleven days. This cheerful booklet promises, together with a constant supply of military music, balcony decorations, and city illuminations, an a.s.sortment of pleasures warranted to suit every taste--infantry reviews, cavalry reviews, cadet reviews, ma.s.ses under roof and ma.s.ses in the open, claustral processions, parades of giants, dwarfs, and _La Tarasca_, a charity raffle in the park under the patronage of Granada's most distinguished ladies, the erection of out-of-door altars, the dispensing of six thousand loaves of bread among the poor (from my experience of Granada beggars I should say the supply was insufficient), a solemn Corpus procession pa.s.sing along white-canopied streets under a rain of flowers, three regular bull-fights with the grand masters Guerrita, Lagartijillo, and Fuentes, followed by a gloriously brutal _corrida_, with young beasts and inexperienced fighters, cattle fair, booths, puppet shows, climbing of greased poles, exhibition of fine arts and industries, horse racing, polo, pigeon shoot, trapeze, balloon ascensions, gypsy dances, and fireworks galore.

But even faithful Granada shared in the strange catalogue of misfortunes which attended Corpus last year. The rains descended on her Chinese lanterns, and the winds beat against her Arabic arches with their thousands of gas-lights. On the sacred Thursday itself, the Andalusian weather made a most unusual demonstration of hurricane and cloudburst, with interludes of thunder and lightning. Great was the damage in field, vineyard, and orchard, and as for processions, they were in many places out of the question. Even Seville and Cordova had to postpone both parades and bull-fights. But this was not the worst.

In Ecija, one of the quaintest cities of Andalusia, an image of the Virgin as the Divine Shepherdess, lovingly arrayed and adorned with no little outlay by the nuns of the Conception, caught fire in the procession from a taper, like Seville's Virgin of Montserrat in the last _Semana Santa_. The _Divina Pastora_ barely escaped with her jewels. Her elaborate garments, the herbage and foliage of her pasture, and one of her woolly sheep were burned to ashes. In Palma de Mallorca, a romantic town of the Balearic Isles, a balcony, whose occupants were leaning out to watch the procession, broke away, and crashed down into the midst of the throng. A young girl fell upon the bayonet of a soldier marching beneath, and was grievously hurt. Others suffered wounds which, in one case at least, proved fatal. The Opposition journals did not fail to make capital out of these untoward events, serving them up in satiric verse with the irreverent suggestion that, if this was all the favor a reactionary and ultra-Catholic government could secure from Heaven, it was time to go back to Sagasta.

The ecclesiastical Toledo, seat of the Primate of all Spain, is one of the Spanish cities which still observe Corpus Christi as a high solemnity, and Toledo is within easy pilgrimage distance of Madrid. I had already pa.s.sed two days in that ancient capital of the Visigoths, ridding my conscience of the sightseers' burden, and I both longed and dreaded to return. The longing overcame the dread, and I dropped in at the _Estacion del Mediodia_ for preliminary inquiries. I could discover no bureau of information and no official authorized to instruct the public, but in this lotus-eating land what is n.o.body's business is everybody's business. There could not be a better-humored people. The keeper of the bookstand abandoned his counter, his would-be customers lighting cigarettes and leaning up against trucks and stacks of luggage to wait for his return, and escorted me the length of the station to find a big yellow poster, which gave the special time-table for Corpus Thursday. The poster was so high upon the wall that our combined efforts could not make it out; whereupon a nimble little porter dropped the trunk he was carrying, and climbed on top of it for a better view. In that commanding position he could see clearly enough, but just when my hopes were at the brightest, he regretfully explained that he had never learned to read. As he clambered down the proprietor of the trunk, who had been looking on with as much serenity as if trains never went and starting bells never rang, mounted in turn. This gentleman, all smiles and bows and tobacco smoke, read off the desired items, which the keeper of the bookstand copied for me in a leisurely, conversational manner, with a pencil lent by one bystander on a card donated by another.

There is really something to be said for the Spanish way of doing business. It takes time, but if time is filled with human kindliness and social courtesies, why not? What is time for? Whenever I observed that I was the only person in a hurry on a Madrid street, I revised my opinion as to the importance of my errand.

As I entered the station again on the first of June at the penitential hour of quarter past six in the morning, I was reflecting complacently on my sagacity as a traveller. Had I not bethought me that, even in the ecclesiastical centre of Spain and on this solemn festival, there might be peril for a stranger's purse? What financial ac.u.men I had shown in calculating that, since my round-trip ticket to Toledo before had cost three dollars, second cla.s.s, I could probably go first cla.s.s on this excursion for the same sum, while two dollars more would be ample allowance for balcony hire and extras! And yet how prudent in me to have tucked away a reserve fund in a secret pocket inaccessible even to myself! But why was the station so jammed and crammed with broad-hatted Spaniards? And what was the meaning of that long line of roughs, stretching far out from the third-cla.s.s ticket office?

Bull-fight explained it all. Even reverend Toledo must keep the Corpus holy by the public slaughter of six choice bulls and as many hapless horses as their blind rage might rend. Worse than the pagan altars that reeked with the blood of beasts, Spain's Christian festivals demand torture in addition to butchery.