Wanderings in Spain. Gautier Théophile
scraping their teeth against a hard stone, of tin-kettles scraped by some harsh instrument, or of the rusty hinges of a prison door turning round and obliged to release its prisoner; I imagined that it was, at the least, some princess being assassinated by a savage necromancer. It was nothing but a cart, drawn by oxen, ascending the street of Irun, and the wheels creaking and groaning piteously for want of being greased, the driver preferring, doubtless, to put the grease in his soup. This cart was, certainly, exceedingly primitive. The wheels were of one piece, and turned with the axle, as is the case with those wagons which children manufacture out of the rind of a pumpkin. The noise can be heard at the distance of half a league, and is not displeasing to the aborigines of these parts. In this fashion they hear a musical instrument which costs nothing, and plays of its own accord as long as the wheel lasts. The noise is to them as harmonious as the feats of a violinist upon the fourth string are to us. A peasant would not give a "thank you" for a cart which did not play. This kind of vehicle must date from the deluge.
On an old palace, now transformed into an official residence, we beheld for the first time the placard of white plaster which disgraces many other old buildings, with the inscription —Plaza de la Constitucion. It must certainly be a fact, that whatever is concealed in anything comes out somehow or other; a better symbol of the actual state of the country could not have been selected. A constitution forced upon Spain is a handful of plaster upon granite.
As the ascent was toilsome, I walked as far as the gates of the town, and, turning round, cast a last look of farewell upon France. It was truly a magnificent sight. The chain of the Pyrenees sloped away in harmonious undulations towards the blue surface of the sea, crossed here and there by bars of silver; while, thanks to the excessive clearness of the air, in the far, far distance was seen a faint line of pale salmon-colour, which advanced in the immeasurable azure, and formed an immense indentation in the side of the coast. Bayonne and its advanced guard, Biarritz, occupied the extremity of this point, and the Bay of Biscay was mapped out as sharply as on a geographical chart. After this, we shall see the sea no more until we are in Andalusia. Good night, honest Ocean!
The coach ascended and descended at full gallop the most rapid declivities: a kind of exercise, without a balancing-pole, upon the tight rope, which can only owe its success to the prodigious dexterity of the drivers, and the extraordinary sure-footedness of the mules. Despite this velocity, however, there would, from time to time, fall in our laps a branch of laurel, a little nosegay of wild flowers, or a wreath of mountain strawberries – ruddy pearls strung upon a blade of grass. These nosegays were flung in by little beggars, boys and girls, who kept running after the coach with their bare feet upon the sharp stones. This manner of asking alms, by first making a present themselves, has something noble and poetic about it.
The landscape, though rather Swiss perhaps, was charming, and exceedingly varied. Mountain ridges, the interstices of which permitted the eye to dwell upon others more elevated still, rose up on each side of the road; their sides goffered with different crops and wooded with green oaks, stood out vigorously against the distant and vapoury peaks. Villages, with their roofs of red tiles, bloomed amid thickets at the mountains' feet, and every moment I expected to see Ketly or Getly walk out of these new châlets. Fortunately, Spain does not push its Opéra Comique so far.
Torrents, as capricious as a woman, come and go, form little cascades, divide, meet each other again, after traversing rocks and flint stones, in the most amusing fashion, and serve as an excuse for a number of the most picturesque bridges in the world. These bridges, thus indefinitely multiplied, have a singular characteristic: the arches are hollowed out almost up to the very railing, so that the road over which the coach passes does not appear to be more than six inches thick. A kind of triangular pile, shaped like a bastion, generally occupies the middle. The business of a Spanish bridge is not a very fatiguing one; there was never a more perfect sinecure; three quarters of the year you can walk under it. There it stands, with an imperturbable calmness and patience worthy of a better lot, waiting for a river, a rill of water, or even a little moisture, for it feels that its arches are merely arcades, and that their title of "bridge" is pure flattery. The torrents I have just mentioned have at most but four or five inches of water in them, but they are sufficient to make a great deal of noise, and serve to give life to the solitudes which they traverse. At long intervals they turn some mill or other machinery, by means of sluices, built in a manner that would enchant a landscape-painter. The houses, which are scattered over the country in little groups, are of a strange colour. They are neither black, nor white, nor yellow, but of the colour of a roasted turkey. This definition is of the most striking truth, although it is trivial and culinary. Tufts of trees, and patches of green oaks, impart a happy effect to the large outlines and the misty and severe tints of the mountains. I dwell particularly upon these trees, because nothing is more rare in all Spain, and henceforth I shall hardly have occasion to describe any.
We changed mules at Oyarzun, and at nightfall reached Astigarraga, where we were to sleep. We had not yet had a taste of a Spanish inn. The picaresque and "lively" descriptions of Don Quixote and Lazarille de Tormes occurred to our memory, and our whole bodies shuddered at the very thought. We made up our minds to omelettes adorned with Merovingian hairs and mixed up with feathers and birds' feet, to gammons of rancid bacon with all the bristles, equally adapted for making soup or brushing boots, to wine in goat-skins, like those which the good knight de la Mancha cut so furiously into, and we even made up our minds to nothing at all, which is much worse, and trembled lest all we should get would be the fresh evening breeze, supposing we were not obliged to sup, like the valorous Don Sancho, off the dry air of a mandoline.
Taking advantage of the little daylight that remained, we went to look at the church, which, to speak truth, was more like a fortress than a temple; the smallness of the windows, formed like loopholes, together with the solidity of the buttresses, gave it a robust and massive appearance, more warlike than pensive. This form occurs in every church in Spain. All around stretched a sort of open cloister, in which was hung a bell of immense size, which is rung by moving the clapper with a rope, instead of putting in motion the vast metal capsule itself.
On being shown to our rooms, we were dazzled with the whiteness of the beds and windows, the Dutch cleanliness of the floors, and the scrupulous care shown in every particular. Fine handsome, strapping girls, exceedingly well dressed, and with their magnificent tresses falling upon their shoulders, not bearing the slightest resemblance to the Maritornes we had been led to expect, bustled about with an activity that augured well for the supper, which did not keep us long waiting: it was excellent, and very well dished up. I will run the risk of appearing too minute, and describe it; for the difference between one people and another consists in the thousand little details which travellers neglect for those profound poetical and political considerations which anyone may very well write without ever having been in the country itself. First of all comes a meat soup, which differs from ours from the fact of its having a reddish tinge, due to the saffron with which it is flavoured. Red soup! I hope this is a pretty good commencement of local colouring. The bread is very white, of exceedingly close texture, with a smooth crust, slightly glazed over with yolk of egg; it is salted in a manner very apparent to Parisian palates. The handles of the forks are turned the wrong way, and the points are flat and shaped like the teeth of a comb. The spoons, too, have a spatula-kind of appearance not possessed by our plate. The table linen is a sort of coarse damask. As for the wine, I must confess that it was of the most beautiful violet, and thick enough to be cut with a knife, and the decanters which held it did not tend to increase its transparency.
After the soup, we had the puchero, an eminently Spanish dish, or rather the only Spanish dish – for they eat it every day from Irun to Cadiz, and reciprocally. A comfortable puchero is compounded of a quarter of veal, a piece of mutton, a fowl, some pieces of a sausage stuffed full of pepper, and called chorizo, with allspice and other spices, slices of bacon and ham, and, to crown all, a violent tomato and saffron sauce. So much for the animal portion. The vegetable part, called verdura, varies with the season; but cabbages and garbanzos always play a principal part. The garbanzo is not much known at Paris, and I cannot define it better than "as a pea which aspires to be considered as a haricot-bean, and succeeds but too well." All this is served up in different dishes, and the ingredients then mixed up on your plate, so as to produce a Mayonnaise of a complicated description and excellent flavour. This mixture